Armored Core VI won’t have ‘Soulsborne type gameplay,'” Miyazaki says

After revealing Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon at the 2022 Game Awards, From Software president Hidetaka Miyazaki and game director Masaru Yamamura have given a new interview going into more detail about what fans can expect from the upcoming, long-awaited sequel.

Most importantly, Miyazaki puts some Armored Core fans’ fears to rest by stating that the upcoming title won’t suddenly become a Dark Souls with mechs.

It might have been tempting for From Software to lean into the series and style of game that made its studio a household name. After all, its latest “Soulsbourne” title, Elden Ring, won Game of the Year at The Game Awards and quickly became the studio’s best-selling title. However, in an interview with IGN, Miyazaki says that From Software has “not been making a conscious effort to try to direct it more towards Soulsborne type gameplay.”

In fact, it sounds like the exact opposite is true. Miyazaki goes on to say that the “essential direction of [Armored Core VI] was to go back and take a good look at the core concept of Armored Core and what made that series special.” Specifically, it’s about the process of “assembling and customizing your own mech … and then being able to exact a high level of control over the assembled mech” in combat.

The interview also revealed that while Miyazaki might have directed the initial concepting stages of Armored Core VI‘s development, the current game director on the project is Masaru Yamamura, who acted as lead game designer on Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

Yamamura states that there are “no elements directly referring to Sekiro,” but that Armored Core VI shares “the same essence of battle such as aggressive, speed change and action-oriented fighting.” Continuously attacking the enemy will be key to victory as players can “break the enemy’s posture and inflict a large amount of damage.” Knowing when to go all-in on an attack and when to take it slow will be an important part of battling enemy mechs, it seems.

Yamamura also makes it clear that Armored Core VI “will feature a mission-based structure to the single-player,” reiterating that it’s “not fully open” like Elden Ring. And while it’s technically a sequel, Armored Core VI is a “completely fresh new story” with “no direct links with the previous games in terms of continuing the story.”

However, another aspect of older Armored Core titles that Fires of Rubicon will retain is multiplayer. From Software does “plan to have a versus mode, similar to previous Armored Core titles where you’ll be able to customize your mech and take that fully customized mech into battle with others,” Yamamura states. Given the hype surrounding Elden Ring‘s recently released Colosseum DLC, it’s good to hear that From Software isn’t forgetting about PvP players.

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is set for release on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC sometime in 2023.