With a 10-year gap since the last entry in the franchise, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon was released in August of 2023. Staying true to the series’ roots, the gameplay is mission based mech combat, and it’s a game I personally love. While its premise, mechanics, and visuals are all substantial, it is the music I’m here to discuss. Composed by series veteran, Kota Hoshino, alongside newcomer Shoi Miyazawa, the music for Fires of Rubicon makes a drastic shift away from its predecessor, and for the better, in my personal opinion.
The soundtrack for the previous installment, Armored Core V, is great in its own right and it matches the game’s visuals and style. The music for that game mostly consists of orchestral pieces with live studio drums, guitars and piano leads throughout. It’s very reminiscent of an Ace Combat soundtrack. Several tracks such as Acheron, Lament Over the Howling, Age, Force, and Inversus remind me a lot of the jet flight simulator franchise. It sounds heroic and optimistic. Armored Core VI, however, is quite the opposite.
While V’s soundtrack was mostly uplifting and energetic, Armored Core VI embraces the vast, dark, dystopian world of Rubicon 3. Every track has a spacious feel to it, encompassed by dread & desolation. Gone are the strings and live studio instruments from the previous installment and in its place are walls of synthesizers, full of arpeggiators, pads, and large, distant, almost tribal like drums. There are several tracks that could easily have been part of the soundtrack for Blade Runner: 2049. Compositions like Suppression, Giant Killing, Code 78E, and Clockwork Hostility all could have fit right into Denis Villeneuve’s cyberpunk opus.
While most of the score is atmospheric soundscapes, the boss battle themes are more energetic. The standout track, which plays alongside a standout moment in the game, is Contact With You. This piece is one of the few with a lot of feeling & emotion, while still staying fully electronic and dystopic. It has a melancholy soul to it, while somehow having a sense of perseverance. All of these elements also capture the boss battle itself. It’s a point in the game where the player must prove that they have what it takes to confront the journey up ahead. This fight puts everything you learned so far to the test and even pushes past that. Without a doubt, it’s a difficult endurance your first time around and Contact With You helps reinforce all of this.
While on the topic of standout tracks, Rough And Descent is easily one of the best songs I’ve heard in a recent game. With its unique blend of jazz and electronics, it is surely a delightful track. The drums have a classic Joe Morello rhythm and the lead keys & piano are spicy, all while the very drone-like synths lurk in the shadows of this cool cat tune. The Natural Behavior remix is just as good, with its blazing guitar lead.
Near the end of the game, tracks like Cries of Coral and Echoes of Coral bring the adventure to a climax with sweeping sounds, larger than life in scope. The beautiful vocals, wailing in the distance, parallel to the bombastic, overpowering synthesizers, are reminiscent of Sea Wall from Blade Runner: 2049.
Other tracks such as Unbreakable and Verification sound as though they were composed by actual machines. With a cold & mechanical feel to them, they help expand on sterile environments of Rubicon 3. A large portion of the game has you piloting across wastelands in the snow, rain, desert, and large warehouse-like factories & structures. Kota Hoshino and Shoi Miyazawa delivered an appropriate, almost hypnotizing, score that encompass the weight and scale of the game.
While I understand Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is not one of the more popular titles, let alone soundtracks, it is certainly important to me. I like mechanical designs, futuristic aesthetics, and organic sounding electronic music. Personal bias aside, the game is beautiful in its own right. It’s not as crisp and polished as other higher budgeted titles, but it has its own identity and retains the spirit of older titles while introducing new concepts & ideas. It is by no means a perfect game, but it is a perfect game for me.
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