There's no other mecha game quite like Armored Core
No longer must those of us who love FromSoftware's build-your-own-mecha series languish in purgatory, stuck playing the last Armored Core's only okay (and now decade-old) multiplayer on modded PS3s. Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is blazing its way onto PC—and soon(opens in new tab).
This sequel is a promise to mecha fans that's been decades in the making
If you've been a dedicated PC player for your whole life and the whole mecha anime thing passed you by in the '90s and '00s, the face-tearing hype from fans of FromSoftware probably seems odd. What you need to understand is that Armored Core is a series like no other. In the same way that Elden Ring is an all-encompassing fantasy experience, Armored Core has long strived for that same ideal. This sequel is a promise to mecha fans that's been decades in the making.
Armored Cores are modular mecha with interchangeable components that allow for almost unlimited customization. Weapons, arms, generators, sensors, fire control systems, almost every component imaginable can be ripped out and replaced with something tailored to the needs of the mission. The Armored Core is like a mechanical ecosystem, where every component has some kind of effect on the other. A laser weapon may perform fine when relying on a mid-range generator, but the heavy power draw of sustained fire can make it a liability when faced with helicopter squads or tanks.
That power draw could be addressed with a more powerful generator, at the cost of greater weight strain on the legs. It's easy to switch them out to a heavier model, but that comes at a cost to turning speed, which means no more snaking between buildings and jump-dodging around incoming missiles. Just when you think you've got it all
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