FromSoftware’s wonderful return to mech fight turned our decide for the most effective motion on PC this yr. For extra awards, head to our Recreation of the 12 months 2023 web page.
Ted Litchfield, Affiliate Editor: After I fired up Armored Core 6 for the primary time, I felt like Milhouse taking part in Bonestorm within the Simpsons, the protagonist of each ’90s videogame advert bodily blasted again into their chair by what they have been taking part in. This is likely one of the greatest 3D motion video games I’ve ever seen, higher even than FromSoft’s earlier dinger, Sekiro. Armored Core 6 is a beneficiant font of circulation state kills piloting a ten meter-tall mech in between the crumbling tenements of an impoverished world.
It is also a surprisingly considerate little bit of science fiction, casting you as this put-upon cog of an unthinking company battle machine, the sufferer of indeterminate, life-altering augmentation surgical procedure who slowly wakes as much as their very own potential to write down the historical past of planet Rubicon. Armored Core 6 has a equally abstracted, surreal strategy to the mercenary fantasy as Steel Gear Strong 5, and AC6 makes use of this concurrently exhilarating and dehumanizing setup as a launchpad for a twisting, mind-bending story that solely totally reveals itself after a number of New Recreation Plus runs.
Wes Fenlon, Senior Editor: Throughout this yr’s GOTY debate, Ted and I each joked that Armored Core 6 ought to win Greatest Story. Neither of us have been really joking. The sci-fi dystopia vibes are impeccable, however it’s actually the best way each branching path performs out throughout three runs that makes Armored Core 6 so memorable. The way in which FromSoftware rolls out new story choices in your second and third playthroughs dovetails with the ability curve, too, which works one thing like this:
Cool > Ouch > Cooool > Fuuuu > Hell Sure > F@*# you > I. Am. Unstoppable > How the $#*% do I beat that??? > Now I’m grow to be mech, and my blade shall pierce the heavens
By my third run, with my mech totally upgraded and my abilities sharpened, I used to be completely embarrassing enemies that had as soon as given me hassle. You haven’t seen a much bigger clown than Baltheus, act one’s “exhausting” boss—I despatched his Pagliacci ass to remedy. The true magnificence—and thrill—of AC6 is that it is all the time exhausting to inform how a lot new mech components are powering you up, and the way a lot you are sharpening your abilities till you ascend to the next aircraft of existence. Anyway, greatest mech sport ever made.
Shaun Prescott, Australian Editor: Armored Core 6 did not win Greatest Story but when there was a class for Greatest Environment, it’d have to win. The absence of even the briefest glimpse of an precise flesh world visage has an excellent cumulative impact. This sport is goddamn chilly, and as thematically impenetrable because the tank-tread AC I used to trounce most bosses again earlier than FromSoft balanced that construct into oblivion. Its landscapes are unutterably bleak, and its ethical world daringly hopeless. I did not love being on this world, however it evoked stronger feelings in me than some other sport world this yr.
Sean Martin, Guides Author: As Shaun mentions above, I believe the morally bankrupt side of AC6’s story actually appealed to me. I have been watching a variety of Gundam this yr; Iron Blooded Orphans, 00, and Witch from Mercury, and the settings have so much in frequent by way of typically being company hellscapes occupied by egotistical mech pilots with usually elaborate backstories. It undoubtedly helped me respect the world much more. I additionally love how stripped down and practical AC6’s narrative feels, nearly like a mech itself—simply voice logs and hangar pictures and something extraneous burned away.
Ted Litchfield: AC6 rang a bell in my memory of Steel Gear Strong 5 in that approach. They’re each tales that really feel so alienated from regular life, with characters misplaced within the sauce of this mercenary existence that eclipses each unrelated thought and feeling. C4621 and Venom Snake share an analogous arc as nicely, these personality-less automatons that slowly awaken to their very own humanity and wishes.
God rattling possibly we actually ought to have given this one Greatest Story.
