Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon promises a mecha nerd’s dream with tons of features revealed

With the announcement of Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, fans across the world are excited to see news about a franchise that was once thought put on ice. In recent interviews with IGN Japan, initial director Hidetaka Miyazaki and current Armored Core VI director and veteran game designer Masaru Yamamura have revealed many details about the mecha action game.

Throughout the interview, Yamamura places emphasis on learning a lot from his time designing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and lessons on melee-focused combat, boss difficulty, and how that can translate over to Armored Core’s own framework. There’s a promising air of confidence in how Yamamura mentions that Armored Core VI will be about the boss battles and how adjusting your strategy and setup will be keys to victory in a mission.

Related: Sekiro’s lead designer is directing Armored Core 6, and fans are stoked

The biggest revelation from the interviews was that both Yamamura and Miyazaki drove home the point that Armored Core will be staying true to its roots. Missions, assembling your mech in a garage setting, and a PvP arena were all brought up as features they intend to be the main parts of the game. While they don’t dive deep into how big the missions will be, we can hopefully expect some very densely packed environments to fly and boost around in. Combat will also be greatly varied with tons of options for melee and ranged weapons like missiles, blades, and guns.

Staying true to its past, Armored Core VI will also feature a similar movement and tuning system to previous games in the series. Yamamura specifically mentions that piloting your mech is “basically the same.” In previous Armored Core games, movement was based on how powerful your Generator and Booster parts were allowing you to be fast and able to fly longer in the air. The directors mentioned that there will be tons of tuning options on the parts such as changing efficiency for power, weapon behavior, and other very detailed parameters of how your mech will handle. Numbers-obsessed tuning nerds will feel right at home with this new title.

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is tentatively scheduled to be out sometime in 2023 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.