Three Things That ‘Armored Core VI’ Really Needs To Get Right

Forbes Innovation Games Three Things That ‘Armored Core VI’ Really Needs To Get Right Ollie Barder Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I cover gaming in Japan as well as the pop-culture here. Following Feb 5, 2023, 02:34am EST | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin ‘Armored Core VI’ has a lot to live up to.

Bandai Namco Now that Armored Core VI is very much a real thing, it’s worth looking back at the series as a whole and what this new game needs to get right. To give a bit of personal context, I have been playing the Armored Core games since the 1997 original and have finished every game in the series . I know these games very well and have a great deal of affection for them.

As such, I really want Armored Core VI to do well and to reinvigorate the series not only for longtime fans but especially for newer players that have yet to learn the joys of being a mecha pilot. With all this in mind, here are three things that I think Armored Core VI really needs to get right in order for the game to succeed. Controls And Camera While many will say that Elden Ring is hard, almost no-one complains about the controls.

This is because Elden Ring’s controls are both intuitive and modern. However, if you were to play any of the older Armored Core games , the first thing you would notice is that the controls are neither intuitive nor modern. MORE FOR YOU The ‘Backsies’ Billionaire: Texan Builds Second Fortune From Wreckage Of Real Estate Empire He’d Sold Best Close Up Photography Of The Year: Amazing Winning Photos After Restricting Balloon Overflights For 25 Years, China’s Protests Wear Thin The reasons for this are varied but roughly go like this.

For many Japanese mecha anime fans, piloting a mecha is something they all grew up wanting to do. So when mecha games came along, much of the emphasis was on making the controls complex to emulate the sense of piloting a complex vehicle. It didn’t end there though, as there are technical issues in regards to a mecha game’s design when you start speeding up a player’s relative movement to enemies and targeting.

As manually tracking targets is an issue when you pass a certain speed threshold. There are workarounds to this, such as aggressive aim assists, but Armored Core originally chose a different path. In that, Armored Core used a targeting window.

Capture an enemy within the window and at the right range, your selected weapon would lock-on, and your shots would track accordingly. That meant the focus of the game’s movement was around this targeting window and not the mecha, so the camera was prioritized around the target window as a result. This is something that Masahiro Sakurai commented on recently about the older Armored Core games and how the camera worked to get the mecha out of the way and have the player focus on targeting an enemy.

The corollary of all this is that in order for a sensible dual analog control setup to work, you really need the camera to pivot around your character, or mecha in this case. Simply changing the controls to whatever a modern game like Elden Ring does won’t work unless the camera is updated. If you want to check this out for yourself, you can modify the controls of the original Armored Core on the PlayStation Vita and see how the camera makes a dual analogue setup pretty much useless.

The issue is that in changing the controls and camera like this means you need to re-appraise how fast your mecha can move and how you compensate for the player’s relative targeting. It’s a complex and intricate issue, but it needs resolving for Armored Core VI , especially if newer players are going to try this game out. While I love the old Armored Core games and enjoyed how they controlled, it really is time to fix this issue and make these games more accessible.

Accessible Customization The Armored Core games occur in two main parts; mecha combat and mecha customization. Both are inexorably intertwined, as customizing your mecha has a massive impact on how you will fare in combat. Now, there are plenty of games that have involved back end character customization but the Armored Core games have tended to be more complex than your average role-playing game in that regard.

While the general layout and organization of your garage and the parts shop improved with each iteration, the customization in Armored Core inevitably ended up being full of impenetrable stats. The fix here would be to keep all that juicy statistical complexity but to have some kind of guidance on how it all works. Maybe add a character like a helpful mechanic, that would guide newer players through the intricacies of building your Armored Core and what would work best for each mission.

Obviously, this would be an optional extra that would be queried on startup, as veteran players would likely lose their minds having to deal with the mecha gaming equivalent of clippy . The good news here is that Armored Core VI’s producer Yasunori Ogura already said they are making the game’s customization more logical , but considering that most modern gamers haven’t played an Armored Core game before some additional guidance would be a very good idea. Proper Localization, PR And Marketing This is arguably the biggest stumbling block the older Armored Core games had outside of Japan.

From appalling localization to non-existent PR and marketing, most gamers didn’t even know the Armored Core games existed. However, this was very much a Western phenomenon, as FromSoftware published the Armored Core games in Japan and handled their respective releases very well indeed. By contrast, the likes of Armored Core Verdict Day (shown below) received no PR or marketing for its international release in 2013 and its localization was a mess too.

In the decade since, mecha pop-culture is far more widespread and gamers are far more savvy about the cultural backdrop that games like Armored Core sit within. In short, Bandai Namco needs to take a leaf out of FromSoftware’s book and actually market these games properly now and not hold back or tone down the mecha elements, as that will just confuse newer players. After all, the Armored Core games are very clearly about mecha, so downplaying that just sends mixed messages that will confuse people.

FromSoftware isn’t about to alienate its longstanding Armored Core fanbase because it knows that the more casual players will look to what experienced fans say about the new game. It’s clear that from the massive number of views the trailers on YouTube received for Armored Core VI that people are aware of the game, but that needs to be followed up on and not in a way that undermines what these games are. I really want Armored Core VI to do well and appeal to both longtime fans like me but also newer players that are obviously very interested in the game.

I genuinely think you can cater for both and that you actively need to do so for the game to succeed. There are plenty of examples where games tried to cater to just newbies, and the games ended up being bland and boring. The key is to make sure the no-one is left behind, as that way you not only have a more interesting game to play but a group of longtime fans evangelizing how great the game is to newer players.

This is why watching all the newer players go to Reddit asking for help from veterans is so great, as the Armored Core community outside of Japan is already poised to help. Wasting such an opportunity would be very stupid. Armored Core VI will be released later this year for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

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