Elden Ring won Game of the Year, along with three other major wins, at the recent Game Awards 2022. Over the past decade, developer FromSoftware has made a name for itself with its dark, punishing action/RPG titles, culminating in its most recent, multi-award-winning entry. But long before such games saw the light of day, the developer was known largely for the Armored Core series, debuting in 1997. Though gothic fantasy and mech combat are very different esthetics, all the games shared a common thematic through line: the struggle for survival in a catastrophically broken world.

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When asked in a recent interview with IGN about this recurring theme, Miyazaki revealed that the reasons behind this choice are two-fold. First and foremost, he said it comes down to taste. Using FromSoftware’s debut game King’s Field and the early Armored Core games as an example, he stated that the struggle to survive in a catastrophic setting had always intrigued the creative minds behind the company. Previous CEO and director of the aforementioned games, Naotoshi Zin, bore a love for these types of worlds that Miyazaki and his fellow developers share.

The second reason, according to the company president, has more to do with the skill set and experience of the development teams. He explained that “a lively bright setting is a little bit beyond FromSoftware’s capability or experiences as a developer.” Speaking from a pragmatic angle, Miyazaki explained how it was simply a better use of resources and knowledge to gear the designers’ efforts towards sculpting the grim worlds it’s known for. The proof of the developer’s knack for such world-building is evident in the many YouTube videos and fan thread’s voraciously discussing it. In fact, there’s even an unofficial compendium of Dark Souls lore to be released in 2023.

Miyazaki’s reasoning here may be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, as a taste for making apocalyptic games would lead to more experience on the subject, which would lead to a tendency to make more such games, and so on. But regardless, it’s clear that FromSoftware has honed the creation of these settings down to an art, with Elden Ring setting a new bar for open-world games.

The specifics of how Armored Core 6 will leverage its apocalyptic setting remain unclear, and Miyazaki has gone out of his way to mention that no conscious effort was made to make it more like a Souls game. But even if it remains distinctly different from the developer’s headline series, players are no doubt in for another immersive, broken world.

Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon will launch in 2023 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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Source: IGN