Even as the developers at FromSoftware continue to insist that Armored Core 6 is not a Soulslike, Soulslike fans are continuing to get very excited for the mech game’s new mechanics, including what sure sounds like Sekiro’s posture system.
As detailed in a recent PlayStation Blog post (opens in new tab), if an Armored Core “takes too many hits over a short period of time, its Attitude Control System will be overloaded, making it vulnerable for a short time. Both continuous hits and big, powerful strikes will cause stagger damage, encouraging you to keep up the pressure on the opponent. The damage inflicted to an enemy’s stagger gauge varies from weapon to weapon. It can also be affected by factors like distance, adding additional strategy in equipping and using these armaments in combat. “
Notable Souls modder and content creator Zullie notes (opens in new tab) that this is basically just Sekiro’s posture system, which makes sense given that Sekiro’s lead game designer, Masaru Yamamura, is co-directing AC6. That’s led basically everyone in the replies to dub the new game “Mechiro.” (Though personally I’m more a fan of the “Sekirobo” line (opens in new tab).)
I joke because my actual take on this is kind of insane.It feels like an extension of the design philosophy of character builds in Elder Ring. ER aggressively pushed you towards mixing magic and melee combat. Every cool melee weapon required some kind of magic stat investment.April 27, 2023
It’s been a decade since the last Armored Core game, and since then FromSoftware has built an entirely new fanbase that knows it pretty much exclusively as ‘the Soulsborne studio.’ With that in mind, we’ve been eagerly wondering whether the mech game would borrow elements from the games that have made FromSoftware one of the industry’s biggest players, but the devs have insisted over and over that Armored Core 6 is not a Soulslike.
Instead, the devs say that the elements shared by Armored Core and the Soulsborne lineage – stuff like highly challenging action, intense boss fights, and abstract world-building – are all simply core to FromSoftware itself. It’s just been a long time since the last Armored Core, so all the studio’s design evolutions have started to look a bit Souls-shaped.
Soulslike or not, Armored Core 6 is one of the the biggest new games for 2023.