Summary
- Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon marks the long-awaited return of the franchise, and its success proves the demand for old fans to revive the mecha series.
- Armored Core: Verdict Day, the previous entry, earned respect for its improved single-player campaign and robust online integration, offering co-op and unique boss battles.
- While the upcoming AC6 takes a different approach with its single-player focus, it can learn from Verdict Day's strengths, such as implementing campaign co-op and complex multiplayer raid bosses.
It took a long time, but the Armored Core franchise has finally returned. On August 25, 2023, FromSoftware released Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, which quickly made a name for itself as a worthy return for the prolific mecha franchise. The last entry to launch before AC6 was Armored Core: Verdict Day for the PS3 and Xbox 360, and the two games were separated by nearly a full decade thanks to Verdict Day's North American release on September 24, 2013.
With an absence that long, it's not hard to see why old fans were clamoring for FromSoftware to step away from its Soulslikes and revive one of its older franchises. The decision to wait until after the wildly successful Elden Ring has paid off, as AC6 seems to be the best-selling Armored Core yet. However, while it owes a lot to FromSoftware's recent projects, in many ways, AC6's long development picked up right where Armored Core: Verdict Day left a decade prior. Even though Armored Core fans have favorite entries throughout the franchise, being the last AC released for a time gave Armored Core: Verdict Day a special status that it worked hard to earn.
Armored Core's Strengths Were Maintained Throughout Verdict Day's Long Life
While Armored Core 5 now sits as one of the franchise's black sheep, its immediate successor Verdict Day earned some respect by cleaning up its act. Missions were shortened to the bite-sized encounters of past AC games, eliminating AC5's marathon levels and returning to the segmented act structure that some other AC's had. The single-player campaign was a massive step up from AC5's in general, especially the focus on mercenaries caught up in a much larger conflict instead of a black-and-white rebellion narrative.
However, the element that Armored Core: Verdict Day is remembered for most is its online integration. Multiplayer deathmatches were just the tip of what was on offer, as the entire campaign supported co-op, and the postgame was tuned to encourage it. Many unique bosses and story scenarios awaited players, and there are even some rare intergenerational callbacks to Armored Core 4 and For Answer. The game also gets a buff from being the only seventh-console-generation Armored Core with functioning online servers nowadays. Verdict Day may not have been able to recapture all the strengths of older Armored Core games, but it had its own.
Modern Armored Core Can Learn From What Made Verdict Day Special
Although Armored Core 6 seems like a vastly different experience than Verdict Day, being preoccupied with single-player and Garage customization, it does owe some things to the fifth-generation games. The scan function is a less interruptive take on AC5 and Verdict Day's scan modes, and the mix of short missions and longer ones with checkpoints is a hybrid between their campaigns. There are also plenty of common FromSoftware themes and imagery shared between them, but Verdict Day still has a lot to offer future entries.
It may be too late for Armored Core's sixth generation to implement, but the series should bring back more of the online elements that defined Verdict Day. Campaign co-op is a beloved feature that many of FromSoftware's recent games have, so there's no reason to leave it out of Armored Core. That goes double for the more complex boss fights that have migrated from Souls to Armored Core 6, which could culminate in some great multiplayer raid bosses. Most content should still accommodate solo play, but an entry with Fires of Rubicon and Verdict Day's strengths combined could be in the running for one of the best Armored Core games yet.
Armored Core: Verdict Day was released on September 24, 2013, for PS3 and Xbox 360.