What is Armored Core?

Armored Core began on the PlayStation in July 1997. The player is a Raven, a mercenary pilot of the titular Armored Cores, taking contracts from corporations in a post-apocalyptic world, and the game around the missions is an engineer’s ledger: hundreds of parts, from legs to generators to FCS chips, bought with mission earnings after repair and ammunition costs are deducted, every build balanced against weight and energy budgets. It is the oldest continuous expression of FromSoftware’s design character: systems first, story in fragments, mastery measured in preparation.

The series ran for sixteen years before its famous decade of silence, fourteen main games, seven spin-offs and three remastered re-releases across rebooted continuities the fans count as generations, and it trained the studio’s leadership: Miyazaki’s first director’s chair was Armored Core 4.