Armored Core 6 Gets Off to Flying Start on Steam ‘Thanks to Elden Ring’

FromSoftware’s Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is off to a flying start on Steam, with publisher Bandai Namco saying it’s “thanks to Elden Ring”.

As reported by PCGamesN, the epic mech battling game from the Dark Souls developer topped Steam’s best selling games chart over the weekend, and while it now sits at fifth place, its launch day performance knocked the critically-acclaimed Baldur’s Gate 3 from its throne.

Fires of Rubicon arrives as the first Armored Core game in 11 years but more crucially as the first after FromSoftware released the likes of Elden Ring, Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Bandai Namco had higher expectations for this game as a result.

“This is an opportunity for us to truly widen the audience of the Armored Core games,” Bandai Namco Europe CEO Arnaud Muller told GI.biz. “My ambitions are not on par with Elden Ring, but our ambitions are way bigger than the previous Armored Core games.

“Thanks to Elden Ring, FromSoftware has become a seal, a guarantee of quality, and therefore people will see that the Metacritic of this game is great, [that] it’s challenging but very rewarding, [and say] ‘I wanna try that game’.”

While giant mechs don’t exactly align with the stoic fantasy world of Elden Ring, the two do share one similarity on the technical side. The PlayStation 4 Pro version of Armored Core 6 runs with a locked framerate of 60fps on PlayStation 5 despite Bandai Namco saying it maxes out at 30fps at 1800p resolution, just as Elden Ring did.

In our 8/10 review, IGN said: “Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon’s stellar customization options feed into its excellent mecha combat, and the result is challenging combat puzzles that kept my attention all the way through its 15-hour campaign and beyond. It’s let down by a dull story, but lands direct hits where it counts.”

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.