CORE RETURNS

ARMORED CORE VI marks the first PC entry in the cult classic mecha sim saga

-  Noah Smith

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 merely OK (and now decade-old) multiplayer on modded PlayStation 3s. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is blazing its way onto PC.

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 hype from fans of FromSoftware probably seems odd. What you need to understand is that there are other games with mechs, but they are not Armored Core. In the same way that Elden Ring is an all-encompassing experience, Armored Core has long strived for that same ideal with giant robots. This sequel is a promise to fans that’s been decades in the making.

WAR MACHINES

Armored Cores are modular mecha with interchangeable components that allow for almost unlimited customisation. Weapons, arms, generators, sensors, fire control systems, 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 symbiotic relationship with another. A laser weapon may perform fine when relying on a mid-range generator, but the 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. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, you’ll always run into some kind of design oversight necessitating another round of refits.