When is the Armored Core 6 release date? Armored Core 6 drops you amidst the Fires of Rubicon to fight dangerous extraterrestrial factions and claim the planet’s natural resources. While that sounds incredibly dangerous, you get to pilot a huge mech along the way, which certainly helps your survival chances – provided you have the best customizations and battle strategies, of course.
Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is an action game developed by FromSoftware. While the studio is best known for games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring, Armored Core is one of their oldest game series, dating back to 1997. Here’s a look at the robot game, including everything we know about the setting and story, and context around the journey to the release date.
Armored Core 6 release date
The Armored Core 6 release date was Friday, August 25, 2023 on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One.
Armored Core 6 trailers
The Armored Core 6 reveal trailer dropped on December 19, 2022. This trailer doesn’t show any gameplay but gives a good impression of the setting and atmosphere. The sci-fi scenery, with its industrial ruins and vast, icy wastelands is rather dark and gloomy – but we wouldn’t expect otherwise from a FromSoftware game, would we?
Take a look at the Armored Core 6 gameplay trailer for a sneak peek of the mechs in action. If you look past all the explosions, you can see their dodge maneuver, hovering skills, forward dashes, and rather impressive jumping abilities. The trailer reveals a scanning ability, allowing you to discover opponents behind walls. We also spot a lot of shape-shifting, plus a variety of weapons, such as split missiles and plasma guns.
Armored Core 6 gameplay
The official Armored Core 6 website describes itself as a “mech game” featuring “omnidirectional battles”. Instead of running around with a gun, this means you’ll be piloting a massive mech suit called an Armored Core. This enables you to soar through the skies and blast your opponents in a dozen different ways.
FromSoftware has promised to keep what is perhaps the most beloved feature of previous Armored Core games: the high level of mech customization. In Fires of Rubicon, you can change your Armored Core setup between missions, thus strategically preparing for the challenge ahead. Of course, changing your mech buildup will change your playstyle dramatically, impacting not only your weapon types but also your maneuverability.
In a recent PlayStation blog, game director Masaru Yamamura discloses two new combat features: the assault boost, which instantly switches between long-ranged gunfighting and close-ranged melee, and the stagger element, which makes a mech more vulnerable when it takes too many hits. The first helps to close the gap between your mech and your enemies, while the latter is meant to “encourage you to keep up the pressure on the opponent”.
All this Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon action takes place through a mission-based progression system with a high variety of scenery, opponents, and mission objectives. While there’s no open world, the mission locales are said to be very large – which is probably a good thing, given the size and speed of an Armored Core. Armored Core 6 also features single and multiplayer modes.
Armored Core 6 story
Armored Core 6 takes place at the heart of a Burning Star System on a planet called Rubicon. Half a century ago, a rare resource called Coral was discovered on this planet, leading to a high level of industrialization. As Coral proved to be an extremely dangerous substance, disaster struck – Rubicon got destroyed, and access to Coral was cut off.
In the present day, Coral has resurfaced on Rubicon. In a tale as old as time, different factions are fighting over valuable material, and that’s where you and your Armored Core come in: as an independent mech-piloting mercenary, a.k.a. Augmented Human C4-621, you’re sent to infiltrate Rubicon.
As mentioned in our Armored Core 6 review the player is initially hired by one of the evil megacorporations to secure their access to Coral, but will get to switch factions later on. Game director Yamamura mentioned that Armored Core 6 has different story outcomes, depending on your choices.
You can jump into Armored Core 6 now to build the mech of your dreams. Keep an eye on all the biggest upcoming games in 2023 to see what else is on the horizon, or dip into the best free PC games if your bank is feeling a bit depleted following the release of Armored Core 6.