Armored Core 6 was almost more like Elden Ring than you’d think

pcgamesn.com:

Armored Core 6 was almost going to be more like open-world game Elden Ring, according to developer FromSoftware. The longstanding mecha series might be coming back after From’s decade-long focus on Souls games, but the team is sure that it doesn’t need to emulate what makes those games a success to make this game work, as the Armored Core 6 release date gets closer.

The Armored Core 6 key art and rating have already given us some new information about the FromSoftware mecha robot game, but now an interview from earlier this year has been spotted by exputer, and we’ve run part of it through a translation tool and cleaned it up in places.

There’s a lot to unpack here, but we’ve focused on how the director of Armored Core 6 felt about potentially making it an open-world game, like Elden Ring, instead of the mission structure the series is known for.

“In the process of developing the sequel, there was also an opinion to make it in a different game style,” Armored Core 6 director Masaru Yamamura explains.

“However, as a result of discussions, it was concluded that it should not be made into a title centered on exploration, such as the Elden Ring or the Souls series. In the Armored Core series, depending on the assembly of your mecha, the movement of the character changes and affects play, and that’s the charm of the series.”

FromSoftware has already talked about how Armored Core 6 only shares similarities with Sekiro, in terms of Souls-like games. While it doesn’t share any true elements with Sekiro, Yamamura has previously stated that the two titles share the same focus on aggressive battle styles and speed, so if you liked Sekiro you could be right at home with Armored Core.

“Armored Core is designed to think about the