Fires of Rubicon is the primary Armored Core recreation in over a decade. This places it within the awkward place of trying to attraction to collection followers who’ve been starved for any signal of their favorite mech shooter returning, all whereas FromSoftware made everybody imagine that it deserted it in favour of its extra profitable – and critically-acclaimed – Souls video games.
But as a result of it’s been so lengthy, the FromSoftware that made Armored Core 6 can also be fairly totally different from the one which created the originals. Fires of Rubicon has to, then, really feel like a reboot, which it typically does. Unfortunately, strolling that tight rope of satisfying longtime followers whereas introducing the collection to a brand new era of gamers was all the time going to be nigh unimaginable.
The FromSoftware identify to me doesn’t signify Armored Core, it represents Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Sekiro, and Elden Ring. Whether I wish to or not, any future venture that comes out of the studio is all the time going to be in comparison with these video games, even when it has the Armored Core identify connected.
So I’m not totally shocked that Fires of Rubicon just isn’t actually grabbing me. I anticipated some stage of friction, figuring out what I do know concerning the unique video games and the best way they’re perceived by those that don’t swear by them, however AC6 is a recreation that’s difficult for the unsuitable causes.
As a giant fan of mech fiction, I used to be all the time going to have an interest within the recreation, significantly contemplating the truth that you spend loads of your time within the storage; constructing, evaluating and usually taking part in a distinct sort of recreation to the one which unfolds on the battlefield.
But I simply can’t recover from how… outdated… Fires of Rubicon feels.
Building one thing with the requirements (and design limitations) of video games from one or two generations in the past doesn’t robotically make me admire a recreation much less; I really like the God of War reboot and its sequel, however should you strip away the performances, writing, visuals and common presentation, you’re left with a restricted motion journey that might have existed on one thing as outdated as a PS2. Evil West is one other (worse) model of that, however that was all the way down to its funds greater than the expertise behind it.
Armored Core 6 sits someplace within the center. It will get loads of mileage out of FromSoft’s artwork route, but it surely lacks the presentation a recreation that massive ought to flaunt in 2023. It’s additionally not a narrative value following. In the few hours I spent with it, I bought bombarded with company names and the merc teams affiliated with them. I’ve no historical past with the collection, so I couldn’t carry myself to care about something, particularly when no different distinctions exist (equivalent to combating types).
All of that finally ends up putting an undue burden on its fight and moment-to-moment.
The recreation’s fight hasn’t modified a lot from its basic roots. More than that, Fires of Rubicon just isn’t a recreation that learns any classes from the studio’s newer work. Almost as if it was developed in a vacuum by a group that toiled away at it for ten years whereas the studio was making a reputation for itself elsewhere, with one of the crucial polished video games we’ve seen within the final decade-plus.
It’s a troublesome expertise, positive, but it surely feels gimmicky. Every boss I fought appears to be designed for gamers to fail at it on their first run. Depending in your construct, you’re prone to wish to again out and take a look at a distinct method to even stand an opportunity. I’m blissful altering my fashion to suit the event – FromSoft’s non-AC work definitely has skilled me for that. But in Fires of Rubicon, it all the time feels such as you’re searching for a form that matches the outlet you’re offered with.
The recreation makes you’re feeling such as you’re being railroaded into speccing a sure approach, virtually like there’s one resolution to that specific puzzle. It doesn’t assist that a lot of the sport’s environments are as bland as they get. Obviously, you may’t precisely let your creativeness run wild with a post-apocalyptic setting as you’d in Elden Ring’s fantasy land, however I’ve to but to be left in awe traversing the world.
The construction of AC6’s mission-based design makes that feeling worse. Before FromSoft went open world with Eldern Ring, I by no means felt like stage design from its earlier video games restricted discoverability, fairly the other. Here, it looks like you may instantly grasp the dimensions and scope of the setting two minutes into it. If you attempt to search for an alternate method or enterprise off the beating path hoping for any secret, the out-of-bounds barrier will probably be fast to remind you that you simply’re taking part in a online game.
I think about longtime followers are screaming ‘that is how AC has all the time been!’ proper now, however I simply refuse to imagine that, after over a decade, all we bought was a considerably better-looking recreation that sands down a number of of the rougher edges, however casually ignores FromSoft’s design revolutions elsewhere. It simply looks like a recreation any studio might’ve made.
