One of the most surprising reveals at the Game Awards was the announcement of Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon from the legendary developer FromSoftware. While best known in recent years for titles such as Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and most recently Elden Ring, FromSoftware has a storied history developing the Armored Core series before shifting focus to the more popular Dark Souls series. Leaning on its more well-known franchises, the trailer for Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon fooled many viewers into thinking it was a trailer for something related to Dark Souls or Elden Ring.
It was already a huge night for FromSoftware who saw Elden Ring take home several awards, including the coveted Game of the Year. With the audience already primed for something related to Elden Ring to be announced by the developer, the reveal of a new entry in the Armored Core series came as an unexpected yet welcome turn of events. Although there was no official confirmation of Elden Ring DLC, director Hidetaka Miyazaki hinted at future content updates in his acceptance speech for the Game of the Year award.
The Reveal Trailer for Armored Core 6 Had Dark Souls Written All Over It
FromSoftware knew what they were doing when starting this cryptic trailer off with imagery that evoked Elden Ring or the Dark Souls series. The first shots show a blazing flame and the sky turning a deep red reminiscent of the burning of the Erdtree, a pivotal moment in Elden Ring. Fire has always played a major role thematically in the Dark Souls franchise, as well as Elden Ring, so the initial moments of the trailer highlighting crimson flames immediately sets the audience's expectations on those games.
Following these scenes of fire consuming the world, the words "Feed the Fire" and "Let the last cinders burn" cross the screen. The word choice here has to be a deliberate allusion to Dark Souls as the entire plot of the game hinges on whether to kindle the First Flame and prolong the Age of Fire. Letting the last cinders burn could be a reference to the Lords of Cinder—the characters in the Dark Souls series who have successfully prolonged the Age of Fire—of which the final boss of the first Dark Souls, Gwyn, is most notable. This word choice almost makes it sounds like there may be more Lords of Cinder, leading many viewers to believe it was a trailer for Dark Souls 4.
How Armored Core 6 Could Take Inspiration from FromSoftware's Most Recent Titles
Fans of FromSoftware's work post-Dark Souls might not be familiar with Armored Core's mech combat style of gameplay. While games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring are known for their rhythmic combat mechanics necessary for surviving a world where any enemy could spell death, Armored Core favors a clunkier, build-oriented gameplay as players take on enemies in a massive mech. However, there is still room for Armored Core to draw upon the past successes of FromSoftware's catalog of Souls-like games in its approach to bombastic mech battles.
Boss battles are a huge part of what gives Souls-like games their identity and would make the most sense as a feature that could appear in an Armored Core game. Taking on a larger-than-life boss while piloting a mech would make for an intense gameplay moment and drawing upon the excellent boss design games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring are known for would take this experience to the next level. Learning boss attack patterns and mastering the action-combat gameplay needed to defeat them seems like a natural fit for Armored Core. As more is revealed in the coming months, it's likely to become clear just how the latest entry in the Armored Core series will incorporate elements of FromSoftware's latest successes into its gameplay.
Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon will be released in 2023 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
