Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon Impressions and Deep Dive
Bandai Namco's presence at Summer Game Fest was twofold: the 'public' exhibition of Tekken 8 and Park Beyond, complete with complimentary ice cream for the latter, and a few titles that provided much more intimate but exclusive experiences. It's in this theatre-like experience that we were guided through the same mission that's been presented in other Fires of Rubicon trailers and previews while one of the title's developers (and interpreted into English) offered a deep dive into what to expect in Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon.
Right off the bat, Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon nails that signature pace that FromSoftware used to be known for in its mech combat titles. After decades of being limited by slow, plodding, methodical human characters, it's refreshing to have an experience where mobility is center stage in terms of combat. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was a good change of pace but still fell prey to the Soulslike formula that Hidetaka Miyazaki pioneered as early as the PS1 days with the inception of the Kings Field series. Instead, Armored Core VI feels like the limiters have been released and freedom of mobility is back in the hands of experienced Ravens.
The hands-off presentation that Bandai Namco ran us through was the very same that's been showcased to other outlets but having a guided experience helped to tell the narrative of what FromSoftware is trying to achieve with the sixth mainline numbered entry (and around the sixteenth overall, not counting mobile titles).
FromSoftware opened by explaining that Fires of Rubicon will only have one difficulty mode. This remains in line with the modern Soulslikes, but even past Armored Core titles have dabbled with different difficulty settings. The last major release, Armored Core: Verdict Day, introduced a Hardcore mode that increased the damage your AC takes, increased the price of repairs and ammo, and made other tweaks to make the title more difficult. On the other hand, Human PLUS was a set of abilities that linked the pilot and AC together to provide special abilities and attributes that made the game easier in some ways (we've reached out to Bandai Namco to inquire if such a feature will make its return in Armored Core VI).
Fires of Rubicon also offers an awe-inspiring amount of verticality and multiple branching paths to reach a particular objective. The horizontal and vertical mobility is augmented by AC parts and weight, thus affecting the energy consumption and how long one can sustain flight and hover in their chosen craft. Flying upwards appears limited to prevent any sustained amount of flight to avoid key parts of the level and bypass exploration/hidden enemy encounters. However, I suspect particular boosters and generators might provide a certain edge for players that want to achieve maximum mobility and flight time with their custom-built AC. Dodging in your given AC can be achieved with an assault boost and held to sustain horizontal boosting rather than just a split-second juke familiar to Souls veterans.
Weapon lock-ons function in a hybrid of past AC titles. In the opening moments of combat, the AC was able to pan around a group of enemy combatants and freely move the camera, locking onto each target designated for a quick missile volley and creating an opening to press the advantage and transition in much closer-range combat with the equipped energy blade. At this point, the lock-on engaged to a hard lock (perhaps manually), sticking to the intended target while a delicate dance of horizontal boosts and jumps. Even a bipedal unit with standard joints had high mobility that would typically be reserved for the reverse joint types. Previously reserved for quadrupedal and tank-type legs, the player was also able to fire their back weapons while airborne, a welcome change that fits into the new emphasis on momentum and traversal. Hard lock-on is new for Armored Core and initially appears to be based upon the same mano-a-mano styles of Soulslikes. When hardlocked onto a target, all four missiles from the rear weapon pack make their mark on a single target, while softlocking allows missiles to be spread out across multiple targets (one encounter later shows two targets each getting struck by a pair of missiles).
The Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon HUD was shown in gameplay but has been absent from the videos released publically. The left showcases your AP or Frame health, the number of available Repair Kits, recharge on the scan feature, and an empty slot for the equipped expansion. On the right are breakdowns for all four equipped weapons (left/right back and left/right arms), with ammo counts for those that consume ammunition while the left-hand blade did not. Between the two are two separate bars, one that shows your attitude control or Stagger meter and a wider one below that shows the energy available to your AC that depletes with boosts and thruster activation.
Scanning is a new mechanic for Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon and gives players a sneak peek at upcoming encounters, thus preventing an obvious ambush the first time a player runs through a given mission. The outward expanding pulse fills the arena with an orange hue and highlights nearby enemies, even through walls. This added information will be crucial to prevent players from falling into the trap of engaging a lone enemy while some other mech just around a corner might be charging up a missile barrage.
The Armored Core VI presentation highlighted the open environments with multiple elevations to approach and tighter corridors that traditionally forced AC pilots to change their tactics. Upward-firing rockets are typically all but useless in these narrow corridors, instead providing a focus towards small arms fire or, more typically, melee weapons. A new energy shield is also useful against stationary turrets as the player closed the gap and took it out with the equipped energy blade. The energy shield also appeared to have a timed block mechanic in place, as the shield glowed outwards for a brief moment and appeared to absorb or mitigate more damage the instant it was pulled out versus the sustained block.
Midway through the mission, after dying to an enemy and having to restart from an earlier checkpoint, the presenter stepped into the garage to customize their AC unit to make them more effective in the encounter they just failed. It's here that we're given a deeper look at the assembly of what makes up the AC. Four weapon slots are present along with four frame pieces, three inner components (FCS, generator, and booster) as well as an expansion slot that wasn't used. Each piece that builds up your mech showcases individual stats and parts manufacturers just in case you wanted to show loyalty to one maker over another. The slots are less than prior AC titles, so players won't have to install a radiator or back units in their build. Whether the expansion slot allows for multiple Options or a single is still left to be determined. In the demo, all of the melee weapons were focused on the left arm so time will tell if players can dual-wield or make the right arm the dominant for laser blades. Similarly, we weren't given a glimpse to see if weapon arms have made a return in Fires of Rubicon. Many weapon types, including a laser dagger for the left arm, also include a charge attack for an additional bit of depth to combat not traditionally seen in an Armored Core title.
Stats for each weapon and frame piece are shown on a piece-by-piece basis on each assembly screen while the overall AC specs are shown in six basic stats: AP, defensive performance, attitude stability, boost speed, and current weight/EN loads. Attitude stability insofar appears to be what dictates the stagger system in play here, or Poise for those familiar with Souls titles. Generators now offer cooling speed in addition to EN capacity/output, thus eliminating the need for separate Radiators. I would be curious to see if FromSoftware is only showing the most basic of stats in the assembly screen with options for players to deep dive into the overall breakdown of components that let players get a granular look at just how each frame piece contributes to overall mobility or combat performance.
The Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon demonstration ended with a boss fight against the rogue leader, piloting a massive mobile furnace with two glowing armors with industrial grinders attached to each. The enemy boss appeared with their own stagger and health bars along with two notable lock-on/weak points: an obvious red exhaust port in the front between the grinder arms and a wide open ventilation port at the top of a smokestack at wear one might consider the head of the giant robot. Both were viable for the chosen AC build though I suspect more plodding and less versatile frames might have difficulty boosting up and lobbing rockets into the topmost opening. Overall the boss combat was filled with a spectacle and room-filling attacks that go beyond the simpler duels of a Dark Souls title. The combatant would launch waves of molten liquid and random streams of superheated materials that would damage the player AC in multiple ways. Staying back and shooting the boss mech was limited in purpose, given the enclosed arena the fight took place in, but I suspect there will be ways to telegraph these massive area-of-effect attacks and make it through the fight unscathed to reduce the cost of credits needed to repair your AC after the mission.
Overall, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is a proper spectacle of mech combat that exceeds my expectations. The increased emphasis on mobility and verticality both make leaning towards the lighter, more agile AC units a possibility. Perhaps this will be the Armored Core where I finally abandon my quad leg, heavy cannon playstyle for something that can take advantage of the greatly redesigned melee systems.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon will be available on August 25th, 2023 across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, and PC.
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