Across the last couple decades of the gaming industry amidst the constantly shifting tides of companies rising and falling and technology advancing while trends go in and out of fashion, few development studios have managed to maintain as consistent an output of quality as FromSoftware, a Japanese company known primarily for the Dark Souls franchise, an action game series that has gone on to influence gaming as a medium for decades but before they made Dark Souls, they made Armored Core. The Armored Core franchise debuted in 1997 on the original PlayStation and had been continuously releasing new instalments in the series until a long hiatus in 2013. However, I personally had never heard of the series until the announcement of its return at the end of 2022, resulting in the 2023 release of Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, a game which, after seeing some videos of gameplay, I quickly became interested in and eventually bought out of curiosity. To summarise, this is my first foray into the Armored Core franchise and all impressions are ultimately coming from a newcomer, but suffice it to say: this is one of my favourite video games of all time.

Taking place far in the future where mankind has set its sights on the planet Rubicon 3 in pursuit of a powerful energy source known as coral, you play as C4-621 "Raven", a mercenary illegally smuggled onto the planet by your enigmatic handler to do mercenary work for various corporations with the goal of earning enough money to undo a surgery that has left the unseen protagonist scarred and deformed, both physically and mentally. As Raven, you will take control of an "Armored Core" unit (or "AC" for short), a large robot armed with a variety of interchangeable weapons and parts you can customise throughout the game with the intent of carrying out various tasks assigned to you by corporations who wish to seize the profitable "coral" for themselves. Sabotage, plundering and even assassinations, there is no low you won't be expected to go to in this dystopian world.

Your AC unit is customisable in almost every way conceivable, from the parts making up its body to a maximum limit of four weapons on its body, one for each arm and one for each shoulder. As the game progresses and you earn more money from jobs, you will be able to purchase more parts, weapons and even generators and engines that can fundamentally change how the overall unit feels, from the movement to its ideal fighting style and the game leaves it up to you to figure out what kind of play-style best suits how you want to play. Furthermore, there's also a wide range of cosmetic options such as expansively customisable icons you can place on the unit and full freedom of painting and naming it, with the game even allowing you to save your creations and switch between them with ease with whatever each mission calls for.

Every single part you place in your Armored Core save for the cosmetic paint and decal options impacts the unit's utilities in some way, all of which displayed through an expandable table of statistics shown with each part you place, whether it be the energy consumption a weapon or engine will take to use or how the size of a part will affect the weight and speed of the unit, with many benefits and detriments to consider and all the more reason to create multiple units and test them out or hone them specifically for your next mission. This is made easier by the fact that whenever you die, you have the option to replace your AC unit with any other saved creation before spawning back to checkpoint should you feel another unit will do the job more effectively. Heavier, bigger units deal more damage when charging into opponents and can carry more big weapons while smaller, lighter units can move faster and overwhelm opponents through rapid attacks. Specific parts can also have unique effects, like use special reverse-jointed legs that jump higher or tread wheels to roam around the stage like a large tank.

This freedom in designing your play-style is what gives the game its core identity and is recommended for your survival, as the game continues FromSoftware's tried-and-true tradition of being incredibly challenging. Throughout the game you will face powerful, mechanical opponents ranging from large enemy spacecrafts to other AC units that will push your limits in terms of how much of a beating you can take and while you can stubbornly attempt a "one size fits all" approach and charge your one unit into every fight, having a strong range of units for taking out certain enemies can provide a lot more mileage, a greater upper hand and generally make the experience a lot more riveting as the new play-styles have you think how to approach the situation according to the new parts you've fitted and both the opportunities and limits they pose for your overall unit.

As you progress in the missions, the greater story of the game will slowly unravel as you eventually make contact with a native of the planet named Ayre, a non-corporeal being who can telepathically communicate with you after an incident leaves you dangerously exposed to the planet's coral. With Ayre constantly following you along your journey and growing closer to you as time goes on and the many other eccentric characters on all sides often turn out to have much more to them than their exaggerated archetypical traits would have you believe highlights that the deeper secrets of both the corporations and the planet itself beg to be explored. What makes this game's story, or rather how you interact with it particularly interesting however, is the fact you cannot experience the entire story in one play-through, with the game instead sending you back to the start after you achieve the first ending and expecting you to play through the entire thing again. Though this at first seems confusing, early enough into the second play-through, you'll begin to notice new story threads that weren't present before and new choices open to you, in which following these will result in new possibilities to learn more about the world and supporting cast. A true understanding of the story can only be achieved through three full redos of the entire campaign, something the gameplay compliments considerably well as the new missions that enter the mix each time increase in difficulty and more parts become available for you to find new ways to experiment with your units.

While the basic plot beats across the three laps the game expects you to take around it are exposited through mandatory dialogue heard during and between missions through calls, the growing range in missions and the exceptionally large settings they take place in beg to be explored and that is where the true depth of the story comes into play. If you take steps off the beaten path, you will quickly encounter text documents and records detailing otherwise hidden lore written by characters, sometimes even found near the wrecks of AC units, while other times you could encounter entirely hidden enemies which the game rewards you for defeating by providing "data logs" which are then exchanged for even more parts and items of note. This exploration is then further rewarded by secret parts hidden in large containers around several areas, featuring some of the most unique and powerful weapons in the entire game, meaning that even players less keen on learning the story have a good reason to explore every nook and cranny of each mission.

Aiding furthermore in encouraging the player to do more than the bare minimum is the game's atmosphere, depicting a dark and ominous mechanical environment where all human characters are never actually seen onscreen, with any allies or enemies instead piloting AC units, ships or vehicles across these large landscapes of dilapidated buildings, abandoned cities and sprawling corporate bases that make even your large unit feel insignificant compared to their sheer scale. There is a cold and remorseless tone maintained throughout the entire experience that only further exemplifies the cruelty of the corporations as they push further and further through Rubicon in pursuit of satiating their greed and being the last ones standing and with a choice of three separate endings, you will ultimately determine the fate of every character in the game. Some choices will place you at odds with former allies and force you to put an end to them, others will have you taking down that one character you've hated since the start and all of it feels intense and resonant your understanding of each character grows throughout the journey.

Even beyond the campaign missions, there is also an arena mode pitting you against simulated versions of many of the story's key characters and an online multiple player versus player mode in which you can battle other players with a squad or in a simple one-versus-one duel to truly push what your skills and AC unit are capable of, meaning that even long past completing the story a whopping three times, there are still new challenges for you to rise to, with even a ranking system that will place you against more experienced players once you start racking up wins of your own. With this, the ability to replay any mission you like as many times as you want and the three different iterations of the story for you to enjoy, Armored Core 6 is a game that proves it understands value for money with the sheer abundance of high-quality content it provides in a comprehensive and rich package.

From its intriguing story and world building to its deceptively intricate gameplay and customisation, Armored Core 6 is a title that provides the player with so much more than it is expected to while delivering on nearly every front conceivable. It is a title that overall serves as yet another feather in FromSoftware's cap and a must-play title for anyone with a love of dark sci-fi or a good challenge.