Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon has become FromSoftware’s second best-performing Steam launch, beating the peak concurrent player numbers for Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, but not quite dethroning Elden Ring.
The sixth installment of the mecha combat game reached over 156 thousand concurrent players at its peak on launch weekend according to SteamDB. In comparison, Dark Souls 3 had a peak of 129,875 players, while Sekiro saw 125,315 concurrent players at its highest. Armored Core VI hasn’t quite reached the lofty peaks of Elden Ring, which sits at a record of 953,426 concurrent players.
Despite this, the mecha game’s first entry into the series in 11 years has outdone every other Souls title, along with every other FromSoftware game, on Steam, clearly taking all the lessons learned from Elden Ring to revitalise the franchise – and critic reviews seem to agree.
Our mates over at Kotaku US described Armored Core VI as “a game about having faith in yourself, even when no one else does, and becoming an ass-kicking mech pilot in the process, not because it will save the world, but because it’s cool as shit.” It’s also sitting at a comfortable MetaCritic score of 87 – for comparison, Elden Ring sits at a 94.
Beyond reviews and player numbers, the new FromSoftware title is also smashing sales – it was the best-selling game on Steam for a short period of time, and has since settled into third place post launch weekend, beaten only by Baldur’s Gate 3 and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Whether it’s the crunchy combat, mech customisation, or (sometimes) rage-inducing difficulty that’s drawing in players and keeping them hooked, FromSoftware is onto a winner here for a franchise that has sat dormant previously for over a decade.
If you’ve yet to jump into Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, we’ve got a roundup of the cheapest copies of the game available in Australia here. If you’re one of the lucky ones who’s already jumped in and begun your descent into becoming mech-pilled, we’ve also got some tips on how to defeat that mega-difficult chapter one boss fight, so no thrown controllers or keyboard required.
Will you be playing Armored Core 6 this week, or are you going to save yourself for the impending release of other big titles like Starfield as we begin our freefall into the back end of the year’s gaming release deluge?
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