The creators of Elden Ring return with a new entry in their giant mech franchise, that takes more than a few cues from their previous games.
We’re so glad this game turned out well. We say that as fans of both FromSoftware and giant robots, and despite the fact that we’ve never particularly enjoyed any of the previous Armored Core titles. Our relief is especially palpable because of the harrowing time we had with Armored Core 6 when we played a hands-on preview, where despite enjoying it, we were frustrated by its difficulty in a way not even Dark Souls or Sekiro has managed.
As a result, we ended up looking forward to this review with all the anticipation of a tooth extraction appointment at the dentist. Not because we didn’t want to play it, but because we didn’t want to find out it was a disappointment (or that we were rubbish at it). Thankfully it turned out better than we dared hoped, and while it means relatively little – given how few there are – this is almost certainly the best mech game ever made.
However, it does have more in common with Dark Souls et al. than we expected, not just in terms of the difficulty but the general style of combat and complex customisation. The details are completely different but the level of precision, in the way the game’s systems and world are presented, is very similar. Armored Core 6 demands a lot of its players, but the rewards are well worth the effort.
Although they’ve never been popular in the West, and only seem to be of niche interest in Japan, the Armored Core games have been around since the late 90s. 2005’s Armored Core: Last Raven was the first game by Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki but previously there was little reason to draw a connection between the two parts of his gameography, since this is the first mainline Amored Core game to be developed after Dark Souls become a hit.
As you’d imagine, and despite Miyazaki not being directly involved, Armored Core 6 draws heavily upon FromSoftware’s last decade of work. One of the key differences though is the plot, since there’s no sensible way to make the opaque storytelling of Dark Souls work in a sci-fi context. As a result, Armored Core 6 tells a relatively straightforward tale of greedy corporations, plucky rebels, and a Dune style resource that everyone is after. There’s a faint attempt at some RoboCop style satire but the writing and voice-acting is nowhere near good enough for that.
Rather than a single open world, Armored Core 6 includes a large number of smaller areas which you visit and return to for different missions. They’re usually big enough to allow you to approach objectives from multiple angles, with a major emphasis on verticality and some excellent matte work that makes it very difficult to tell where the edge of the game world actually is.
Your mech controls not unlike a heavily armoured knight from Dark Souls: slow but not awkward and with a good sense of weight (although the sense of scale, so often at fault in mech games, is spoilt by far too many giant buildings, that make you forget you’re supposed to be controlling a 30 foot tall robot). Each mech has a variety of speed boosts and dodges, as well as the ability to fly for short distances, so technically they’re not slow at all, even if moving faster is dependent on the equivalent of a stamina bar.
Most mechs have four separate weapon points for you to attach whatever you want, from a salvo of shoulder-mounted homing missiles, to shields, swords, and a widely different range of guns that go from simple rifle or shotgun to beam weapons and other more fantastical devices. Even with three health kits, that function very much like estus flasks, any feeling of being overpowered is quickly tempered once you engage with a boss character – rather than the cannon fodder enemies that work as little more than target practice.
The verticality is not just in the level design but also a key tactic in terms of combat. You might not be able to fly very far but you have enough jetpack power to buzz above and around your targets, Mandalorian style, as the game requires you to think of fights in a much more three-dimensional manner than normal. It’s rare for any game to do that, even those that involve flight, but in Armored Core 6 it feels natural, precise, and engagingly novel.
When it comes to the all-important question of difficulty the most important thing to bear in mind is the same as any Souslike: make sure you have a plan and make sure you’re completely au fait with the controls and weapons. In our preview we failed to beat the first boss and had to have a developer do it for us. In our review playthrough we took it out first time (well, second – we’re not counting the first where we only started with one health charge).
We don’t think From lowered the difficulty, and for our sense of personal dignity we’re going to assume they didn’t, but instead we simply knew what was coming and readied ourselves accordingly. Although by that time we were also more familiar with how the lock-on system works, which at first seems unnecessarily complex and jittery. It’s not really though, it’s just you can switch between automatically locking onto whatever’s right in front of you or targeting a specific enemy, and the game isn’t very good at indicating which system you’re currently using.
Somewhat surprisingly, considering you are often paired up with computer-controlled allies, there are no online options beyond a minor competitive mode. Playing with a more experienced player was one of the easiest ways to mitigate Dark Souls’ difficulty but here the only thing you can do is play additional missions to earn more money, to buy better weapons and components. That works well enough but is an additional time investment that not everyone is going to appreciate.
Customisation is a key part in many mech games but despite our robophilia we’ve often found it a rather dull and fiddly process. In Armored Core 6 though the options are so many that it all feels very organic and necessary, rather than an artificial attempt to add depth. The range of robot and weapon parts is so wide it feels like picking an optimal loadout in Dark Souls – and then a number of extra alternatives for different scenarios.
The game also really wants you to customise your mech visually, with highly involved editing tools that are pleasingly simple to use, in terms of repainting body parts and adding custom and pre-made logos. (The first thing we did is deck out our mech in D-Calibur colours from Diaclone, just to establish our hardcore robot fan credentials.)
It’s the most obvious thing in the world to describe Armored Core 6 as Dark Souls with robots, and it’s certainly true that there are a lot of parallels with From’s more famous works. But it’s primarily the dedication needed and the attention to detail – on the part of the developer and the player – that are similar, since the action itself is pleasingly unique.
We’re not just interested in robot games because they look cool but because of their potential for offering different styles of play, and in Armored Core 6 you see that fully realised, with controls and weapons that are not quite like anything else in modern console gaming. On top of that, it’s just a really well crafted and imaginative game. The story might be dour and unexciting but the variety in locations and boss battles is excellent.
It might undermine the sense of scale but some of the rival mechs are the size of city blocks, some of which you have to clamber over almost like Shadow Of The Colossus. At the same time, others introduce a bullet hell style element or require a more puzzle-like strategy to overcome.
The bleak tone and colour palette remain consistent throughout, but in terms of combat encounters this is, if anything, more varied than most other From games. Whether Elden Ring will boost its popularity beyond previous entries remains to be seen but this is one of the best action games of the year and a renaissance moment for giant robot sims.
Armored Core 6 review summary
In Short: Probably the best giant robot game ever made and an excellent companion piece to the likes of Dark Souls and Elden Ring, that matches both games in terms of spectacle and customisation.
Pros: Flexible and relatively easy to learn controls, with a near endless capacity for customisation that extends to how you approach mission objectives. Enjoyably unique action, with some great boss battles.
Cons: No online co-op or any easy way to lower the difficulty. Dour tone and weak storytelling are a missed opportunity.
Score: 9/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £54.99
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Developer: FromSoftware
Release Date: 25th August 2023
Age Rating: 12
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MORE : How Armored Core 6 balances its difficulty: ‘we are aiming to educate players’
MORE : Armored Core 6 has a hilariously expensive collector’s edition
MORE : Armored Core 6 is not a sequel or open world says From Software
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