Elden Ring dev’s Armored Core revival gets a release date and gorgeous gameplay

polygon.com:

Elden Ring developer FromSoftware’s revival of the Armored Core franchise launches this summer. The latest trailer for Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon confirms an Aug. 25 launch date for the game, while also showing off first gameplay and cryptically teasing its story.

An official description of that story makes everything much clearer. Here’s the setup for Armored Core6: Fires of Rubicon, from publisher Bandai Namco:

A mysterious new substance called “Coral” was discovered on the remote planet, Rubicon 3. As an energy source, this substance was expected to dramatically advance humanity’s technological and communications capabilities. Instead, it caused a catastrophe that engulfed the planet and the surrounding stars in flames and storms, forming a Burning Star System. Almost half a century later, Coral has resurfaced on Rubicon 3, a planet now contaminated and sealed off by the catastrophe. Extra-terrestrial corporations and resistance groups fight over control of the substance. The player infiltrates Rubicon as an independent mercenary and finds themselves in a struggle over the substance with the corporations and other factions.

Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon was officially unveiled in December. The developer promises that the new Armored Core won’t just be a Soulsborne game with mecha. FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki said last year that his company is taking “a good look at the core concept of Armored Core and what made that series special,” applying its recent game development experience and “reexamining it together with those core concepts of Armored Core.”

Bandai Namco says players will control “highly mobile and highly customisable mechas” in Armored Core 6. The game’s “fast-paced battles” can only be