The bots are back in town
When FromSoftwareannouncedArmored Core VI Fires of Rubiconat The Game Awards in December, a few very predictable things happened. Fans of FromSoftware’s more recent output wondered whether or not this weird mech thing had anything to do withDark Souls. Fans ofArmored Coreawoke from their decade-long coma to become immediately defensive, clarifying thatArmored Coreis a lot older than theSoulssuperseries, and that the two have nothing in common.
The third predictable thing that happened was that I got interested. I knew ofArmored Corein passing because of a handful of friends who are very enthusiastic about mechs, but I had never actually played any of the games. So I got to work checking out some of the older titles in the franchise, and I almost immediately noticed something:Armored Corefeels a lot likeDark Souls.
Which came first, the chicken or the mech?
To be fair, it’s more accurate to say thatDark Soulsfeels a lot likeArmored Core. As manyArmored Coreenthusiasts have pointed out, FromSoftware was in the mech business long before they ventured into the world of gloomy fantasy. The originalArmored Corecame out in 1997, andDemon’s Soulswouldn’t hit the PS3 until 2009. The present may have clouded out the past a bit – theSoulsgames are dramatically more popular thanArmored Coreever was – but it’s worth looking to what once was to fully understand how we got to where we are.
It’s interesting to see just how similarArmored Coreis to its fantastical descendants.Armored Coreseems to have laid the foundation for many of the traditions most commonly associated with theSoulsseries. You know the cryptic way NPCs try to communicate narrative in theSoulsseries? The way they spout off proper nouns in a manner that makes the world feel lived-in, even if the plot isn’t quite coherent? All of that is right there inArmored Core.
The game bit of the game
Gameplay-wise,Armored Coreseems to have built a lot of the mechanical framework that FromSoftware has used for the last decade and change.Armored CoreandDark Soulsare both action games focused on mobility (although movement is a bit simpler and more elegant in theSoulsgames). Both titles heavily encourage the player to experiment with various different builds, and they’re both built around the concept of mastering a build rather than mastering a specific system.
In theSoulsgames, building out your character is as mostly a matter of assigning stat points in specific places. Gear plays an important part, but leveling is the main crux of upward mobility. That’s clearly different fromArmored Core, where your build is entirely based on which components you buy for your mech. Still, it’s obvious that the build-oriented action of games likeElden Ringhas its origins inArmored Core.
Penalties are another era whereDark Soulsclearly builds onArmored Core‘s foundations. If you die inArmored Core, you’re punished by losing currency – if you die in aSoulsgame, you’re usually punished by losing souls (or runes, or blood echoes, or sen, depending on how far you’re willing to stretch the wordSouls).Soulsgames are a bit more forgiving in this regard – most of them include some mechanic for regaining your souls, but once you go broke inArmored Core, that money’s gone for good. In fact,Armored Corewill let you go into the red, and once you accrue enough debt, you’ll have to restart the game nearly from scratch.
Armored Coreis not aSoulsgame, but deep in its cold metallic heart,Armored Coreharbors many of the ideas that would eventually build the modern FromSoftware formula.
So what?
I’m not saying anything too revolutionary here. “Developers iterate on an idea until they find a winning formula” is not a radical concept, it’s a fundamental truth of large-scale game development. But every time I’ve heard someone talk aboutArmored Core VIsince its announcement, it’s been in proximity toDark Souls. Relative newcomers to the FromSoftware family have been curious about whether or notArmored Coreis “for them,” while the starvingArmored Corefans who have waited nearly a decade for this day have become desperately protective oftheirgame.
I’m just here to toss in my two cents.Armored Core VIprobably will feel a bit like aDark Soulsgame. That’s not because the folks at FromSoftware are trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.Soulsmay feel like a genre unto itself, and its massive popularity may make it difficult to spot its roots, but at the end of the day,Dark Soulshas always felt a bit like anArmored Coregame.
