Armored Core 6’s Mech Customization Wants To Make You Feel Like An Intergalactic Mercenary

One of the big features of older Armored Core games was the option to customize your mech, and for Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, developer From Software is once again placing an emphasis on constant fine-tuning, swapping out parts, and building the right machine for the right situation. Compared to previous Armored Core games, Armored Core 6 will take a more relaxed approach to mech assembly between missions, as From Software sought to hit a perfect balance of tinkering with their favorite loadout and pushing forward with a mech that has served them well.

“This is actually an area we spent quite a bit of time trying to balance and figure out where the sweet spot is,” game director Masaru Yamamura told GameSpot. “We do want to put a lot of importance on assembly, but we don’t want it all to just be about number crunching and min-maxing. We wanted a big part of it to affect the play feel, for example, when you switch up the leg types, it affects your movement, when you switch up the weapons it affects how you shoot and how you recoil–things like this.”

Yamamura added that the studio wanted to emphasize the mercenary aspect of Armored Core 6, as diving into the nuts and bolts of a mech loadout will allow players to feel like a professional gun-for-hire in the game. At the same time, the studio also drew upon its work in its previous games, as the game will give observant players a fighting chance if they can adapt their tactics on the fly.

“For people who want to just jump in and tweak a couple things here and there, maybe change the weapons up depending on a mission, that’s fine,” Yamamura explained. “But if you want to get into the real nitty gritty, start tweaking the performance of your inner parts and things like this, that’s also there too. So we wanted to strike a nice balance.

“Assembly has always been a major facet of the AC games, so we wanted to maintain that and bring it to the front and center. It’s a big part of switching up between missions, making you feel like a professional mercenary, tinkering with the hardware, it’s very dear to us. But at the same time, similar to our more recent titles, we wanted players who have that kind of affection and, they’re married to a single mech type or single loadout, we wanted them to feel like they have a chance as well.”

Armored Core 6 launches on August 25 for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One. For more details, you can check out everything that we know about Armored Core 6 so far, how the Armored Core 6 multiplayer complements the single-player experience, and the Sekiro DNA that the game has inherited.