AC pilots are going to get their hands on yet another mech effort in early 2012. Armored Core 5 has been announced for the PS3 and the Xbox 360, courtesy of developers FromSoftware and publisher Namco Bandai. Though there isn’t an English official website yet to describe the new features and such, Japanese gamers are getting an earful on the new direction this game is planning to head in.
In the spirit of the ambitious yet mediocre game Chrome Hounds, AC5 is supposed to have a persistent online world that deals with tactics and strategy moreso than reflexes and such. This means that your success is going to help your faction in an ongoing online war. You’ll buy and build defenses that help your faction hold ground while you are offline and you’ll push the battlelines with friends when online. In addition to this, there will be over 500 items that gamers can use to customize their robot killing machines.
The cores in this version are to be about half the size (5 meters) of most of the previous versions of AC. Apparently this means that the cores are going to utilize the environment and mobility more than just the shear amount of weaponry for success. This sounds very ambitious considering how lackluster most mech games have sold on next gen consoles here in the US. Of course, most mech games have been via Japanese developers (Front Mission Evolved, Armored Core, DW:Gundam) and not really catered for the US crowds but it will be interesting to see how this online effort sparks interest.
