Knocking RPG darling Baldur's Gate 3 off the top spot, Armored Core 6 has delivered on the hype with explosive sales in its first 24 hours.
Never underestimate the insatiable appetite gamers have for giant robot battles. That appetite has propelled Armored Core 6 to the top spot on Steam’s global sales charts more than a decade after the last numbered entry in the series was released, knocking Baldur’s Gate 3 off the top spot.
In a summer filled with huge releases, few could have predicted that Armored Core 6 would be able to find such a large audience. The phenomenal success of last year’s Elden Ring certainly didn’t hurt. Speaking to GameIndustry.biz, Bandai Namco Europe CEO Arnaud Muller explained that Elden Ring has given FromSoftware a “guarantee of quality” among fans.
The negative reviews on Steam are hilarious. Most of them have 0.5 hours on record and are complaining that they can't beat the first boss. Which means they most likely spent no more than 10 minutes trying.
It's not like their complaints are entirely without merit though. I expected difficulty with a From Software game but usually there is an on-ramp to the difficulty.
In AC6 that's completely missing. You're given four trivial fights with almost no tutorialization before being put against a boss that expects you to know about the (yet unexplained) stagger bar and also expects you to use your sword against the helicopter which is somewhat unintuitive, especially since you've only been told to use the sword once and it was against enemies with a shield which reinforces the idea that sword beats shield, and the helicopter has no shield.
Depending on how you approach Dark Souls (there are many ways to approach it, it literally begins with a character creation screen that fails to explain your options), sometimes it does not have a difficulty curve - and people who get that experience generally stop playing all FromSoft games.
DS3 literally starts with a boss that is quite challenging if you're not used to DS already. Just "here is a sword, here is how to swing it, here is a bear of a man with an oozing snake hand - kill him". A lot of players bounced off him.
Fromsoft isn't in the business of making easy games, it's just different variations of challenging. For people that like that it's great. For a lot of people that very understandably is a turn off.
Oooh, I gotta read those discussion threads, the ones for Baldur's Gate 3 were delightfully spicy and filled to the brim with gamers who wanted the game to cater to their exact power fantasies.
Close the gap with assault boost and use the left arm sword ability to break poise then use missiles and bullets send maybe more sword if it charges in time
whole fight can be won in like a minute, was a very fast paced boss fight
The first boss was kind of a PITA because it kept saying I need to get off the ground to avoid the explosions, so I'd launch into the air and just get smashed by direct hits. I finally beat it by landing up on top of the fucker and using the laser sword.
After the last several games topping the charts and being wildly successful, I can't help but think of that EA article saying that story driven single player games are dead.
I can't wait to see publisher's emulating the success of no microtransactions and quality over live service garbage.
Who cares "thanks to Elden Ring" or not, as an Armored Core fan, I'm just happy for more Armored Core and for many players to give it a chance for the first time.
The first time they do will be the first one they release.
...my point is it doesn't really matter, don't preorder because you run the risk of supporting that first one. You can support good games after it's clear that they're good.
I’m just glad armored core is FINALLY selling as many copies as the franchise deserves. Armored core is far too good to stay a cult classic, and I’m beyond excited about potential remasters.
I’ve had ac6 on the top of my steam wishlist all year but BG3 full releasing right before it means I won’t be picking it up for at least a few months. Maybe if there is a Christmas sale I’ll pick it up but I doubt I’ll be done with bg3 by then