While I have no plan to boost into the fire(s of Rubicon) any time soon (so please don’t see this as a herald of my return). I felt compelled to weigh in on what I can already see brewing, dispel some misconceptions and set expectations accordingly.
Long story short for those uninterested in my usual long winded explanations: No this is not “Armored Souls”, Armored Core VI is not a “Souls” game, it’s an Armored Core game through and through, end of discussion.
For those who are interested on my full thoughts on the matter:
As someone who’s been an avid fan and playing Souls games since near the beginning (so over a decade now) and has managed to achieve the position they have in said time I feel like I’m well versed enough to speak with some degree of authority on what is or isn’t a Souls game. Which I’m starting to feel like is a valuable discussion to have right now considering how quickly nebulous that term is becoming as well as the future of the company that should be quickly becoming apparent.
I’m going to start with saying that the core gameplay elements that define a “Souls” game are the following, with this list being based upon the major gameplay elements shared across all “souls” games:
- 3rd person, ground based, Combat focused Action RPG
- Melee/magic based combat
- Classless, non rigid character building
- “Free” exploration
- Dodging/evading being a core combat element
- PvP/CO-OP, Asynchronus Multiplayer
- Lack of difficulty settings
- Character creator
- Currency gained through combat encounters that is used for both spending on items as well as leveling your character
I’m not going to go so far as to say that every future Souls game needs to rigidly adhere to these confines exactly like their predecessors, but I’d say these are the defining, objectively quantifiable elements that are consistent across all Souls games and are core to their design that make them standout amongst their peers while still maintaining a sense of cohesiveness and consistency across all titles that allow them to exist as a “pseudo-series” of sorts. I’d say this consistency is what allows many fans to play all the games across said pseud-series and feel at home despite them all having their own individual design quirks and being from a multitude of different IP.
You could argue there are other elements such as difficulty, tone, lore, presentation, but for the sake of clearly defining a game “genre” around its gameplay design (given the medium and how you interface with said medium) I’ve opted to leave those out, either because they’re more abstract or not really gameplay related and thus I’d argue less integral to classification in this particular context.
The more things you pull from this list the less of a “Souls game” it is, and at a certain point I’d say it’s just not a Souls game at all. Given that Sekiro lacks the RPG elements, a character creator, non rigid character building, Magic based combat, PvP/Co-Op and the traditional currency system I would argue that it’s not a Souls game even if it shares some similar design elements and DNA because it’s now made several major departures from the traditional core of every other Souls game.
Which brings us to this current Armored “Souls” debate. A lot of the reasons I see people attempting to advocate for why Armored Core 6 is a “Souls” game seems to have little grounding in the design elements that are specific to Souls games and moreso based on a lack of familiarity with the franchise and Fromsoft’s design language pre-Souls and trying to arbitrarily tie the two together as a result.
If you go far back enough you can make an argument that any mammal is technically related to any other mammal and you can see similarities between the skeleton of a dolphin and that of a bear, but you inherently know that they’re distinct enough entities in both form and function that there’s no real point in trying to fit the two into the same box beyond confirming shared lineage…somewhere. They’re both mammals sure, but that alone doesn’t make a dolphin a bear and visa versa.
Fromsoft (and really many if not any artistic individuals or collectives, be they videogame studios, bands, whatever) are going to have certain staples in how they create and design things as a result of honing certain skills and preferences across their time as artists.
Just because there are stylistic similarities between their works does not mean that all of their works must rigidly fall into a singular category. Not every Metallica album is thrash metal even though Thrash Metal is a subgenre Metallica helped pioneer and popularize and even if their other releases share stylistic similarities as a result of being made up of largely the same individuals. Not every mainline Final Fantasy game is what would traditionally be categorized as a “JRPG” despite all being within the same series.
Yes, I know I’m stating what should be obvious, but it seems like a lot of From fans that have entered the fanbase as a result of the Souls games seem to be under the impression that every game From makes either is or must be a Souls game and then working backwards from there. Yes From had a decade in which they rose to notoriety as a result of a consistent string of said releases, but I’d say that was largely due to circumstance rather than intention.
While the game may have elements that are in line with Souls games, that’s because those existed in the franchise before Souls did because they’re pillars of Fromsoft’s design language as a collective. But it’ll also have many elements that make it a radical departure from Souls games in it’s inherent design and structure as well as the overall and moment to moment gameplay loop that means it might not be to the taste of every Souls fan. Because it’s not Armored Souls, it’s Armored Core and there’s nothing wrong with that. So let us keep our expectations in check
Most artists don’t want to release variations of the same piece of art infinitely and From is going to go back to making things other than just Souls games. So perhaps instead of hastily trying to fit it into the (quite honestly, very full) Souls box we can look forward to and appreciate the revival of one of Fromsoft’s pillar IPs for what it actually is instead of what “we” want it to be and arguing over whether or not the Dolphin is a bear.
CAPCO-
Ahem ARMORED CORE IS BACK and I hope that even those who aren’t traditionally fans of mech games or Armored Core will at least be willing to give this one a try.
