The Raven Republic

Developed by RedRoryOTheGlen, this indie game project combines elements of previous Armored Core titles, featuring mech action and a garage for tinkering with your mechs. Movement and combat mechanics in particular are heavily inspired by ACV.

In his words, the game “started out as a learning project to make things walk in Unity so it’s still called ‘Walker’ in places…” but honestly, its already got the rough foundations of an Armored Core game, especially the 4th and 5th generation releases.

Best of all, it’s free. Give it a try and download the game.

Check out a gameplay video:

Some additional info from the developer:

The yellow bar above HEALTH is your ARMOR. As long as you have any amount of ARMOR, damage to your HEALTH will be reduced by a certain amount dependent on the PENETRATION of the damaging weapon. If the weapon has a penetration of 20%, you take 20% of damage to HEALTH and 80% of the damage to ARMOR. Once your ARMOR is depleted, you’ll take 100% damage to HEALTH. Enemies also have armor and you may see the red !ARMOR! alert flash occasionally if an enemy you hit has some and reduces your damage.

STABILITY is the white bar between your HEALTH and ARMOR. You have a specific amount of it (standard is 1250) and regain it faster depending on your stabilizer as well as whether you are grounded or moving. Your STABILITY is reduced when you take damage or when performing certain maneuvers (jumping, bursting, wall-kicking). If your STABILITY is greater than 1000, your weapons will be more accurate and fire faster. On the other hand, if your STABILITY is lower than 1000, your weapons will have higher spread and fire slower. Some weapons are more affected by STABILITY than others.

Ah Last Raven, the game that brought Raven Republic together. Somehow, this one was different from the moment it introduced itself. Compared to all other Armored Core games before and after, its opening video didn’t have any music. Sure, one may argue that it had ambient background noise or that the gunfire was the music, but after so long, we’ve finally uncovered what might have been the original music that was supposed to be playing in the background.

A few years back, From Software released the Armored Core Original Soundtrack 20th Anniversary, a series of 20 CDs containing all the soundtracks made for the games. The last CD included missing songs from the game, mostly from promotional videos.

One of them was used for LR’s PV on From’s site back in 2006. Match that with the actual opening, and you get a clear idea of what the original music was supposed to be:

With Elden Ring winning GOTY 2022 and FromSoftware’s reputation as a mover and shaker in the gaming world, the attention has suddenly shifted towards their upcoming Armored Core title. No doubt, people unfamiliar with the franchise are curious as to what it’s all about. Why would FromSoftware, the developer known for Soulsborne titles, go back to a clunker robot game? And with more than a dozen entries in the series, each generation serving as a soft reboot of the franchise, it’s a daunting task to pick where to start, right?

I’ll help you out. You should start with Armored Core 3.

IGN recently sat down and interviewed the creative leads of Armored Core VI, From Software president Hidetaka Miyazaki and game director Masaru Yamamura. Burning questions were asked about the gameplay, and we can almost be certain that it won’t be the Soulsborne/Elden Ring gameplay people have come to expect from the studio.

Besides that, the interview highlights how From will use their wealth of experience in the past few years in developing the next Armored Core title.

Read up on IGN’s extensive interview here.

Come and speculate with us on what Armored Core VI might be shaping up to be in our forums.

Thanks to farmboy28 for alerting us of this in the forums.

It’s been almost a decade, but get ready to suit-up, Ravens, NEXTs, and fellow mercs. Armored Core VI was just announced in The Game Awards 2022, and I can barely contain my excitement.

From the looks of things, it will be a combination of designs coming from all AC games, with hints of Primal Armor from 4, weapon switching from V, and maybe new core functions. These are all speculation for now, and we will continue to track Armored Core VI as we approach its intended 2023 release date.

Come, let us all bask at the warm glow of Armored Core VI’s trailer once more: