Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon recently returned with a surprisingly close release date, leading the community to gear up for the incoming game. Judging by the new trailer and accompanying interviews, Armored Core 6 is the return to form that many have been waiting for, as well as a blast from FromSoftware's past. Armored Core is deeply rooted in the developer's history, with the original entry having almost taken King’s Field’s place as its first game. Much of FromSoftware's catalog since then owes a lot to these two franchises, especially their themes, tones, and difficulty.
Armored Core 6 isn't alone right now, however. The recent smash success Elden Ring is also preparing its DLC for the near future. FromSoftware's fantasy and mecha game lines are running concurrently again for the first time in a decade, and fans of all sorts couldn't be happier. The Souls community cross-pollination that Armored Core 6 should receive will help its sales, although players will quickly catch on that it's very different from FromSoftware's Soulslikes. Even so, they share common thematic grounds, and some of that is plainly seen in both games’ obsession with fire.
Elden Ring Carries The Flames of Ambition
There are no games that better embody the Soulslike genre’s frequent struggles between light and dark than the Dark Souls trilogy. Fire, or the absence thereof, is ubiquitous imagery between all three titles, though it signifies more than just good and evil. Rather, Dark Souls views fire as necessary for life, a horrid thing in need of fuel, something which will inevitably extinguish, a sad reminder of the past's failures, and the near-limitless well of hope for the future. As its successor, Elden Ring keeps fire around as a major element, though it doesn't offer flame the same level of spotlight.
Rather than having light and fire be intertwined, Elden Ring instead shows them as opposed. This is due to the setting's holy elements stemming from the Erdtree, which naturally dislikes fire and anything that exonerates it. Playable Tarnished must oppose that status quo to proceed, and thus fire can take on a pair of considerably different meanings. The first is the Frenzied Flame, the mad power to succeed with inner strength alone at the cost of burning away everything in despair. More optimistic is the flame of ambition, which Morgott references during his encounters. It's this flame that propels the Tarnished forward, and what enables Melina to sacrifice herself, setting the Erdtree ablaze and opening the way for her Tarnished companion.
Armored Core 6 Stokes the Sparks of Destruction
Things are a little different in the futuristic world of Armored Core. For most of the series, fire isn’t among the post-apocalyptic themes shared with FromSoftware's later Soulslikes. However, Armored Core 6 is looking to change that. Both trailers so far have insisted that viewers must "Feed the fire" and "Let the last cinders burn." With the planet Rubicon-3’s volatile resource Coral currently represented through flame-like waves, fire has fed back into AC in a big way.
Armored Core 6 seems focused on fire's propensity for destruction, with even the most charitable interpretations sharing this lens. Players may be expected by their corporate overlords to fan the flames of conflict until only their side remains or nurture the flames of rebellion against them. Either way, between the player's actions and Coral's history of destruction, a lot of fires are going to start all over Rubicon-3. The “cinders” line implies that the planet won't last much longer either way, setting Armored Core 6 up with a narrative that could be even more despondent than Elden Ring’s own.
Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon will be released on August 25 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
