FromSoftware is undoubtedly best-known these days as the studio behind Dark Souls and Elden Ring, but 2023 marked the developer’s return to its most enduring franchise, Armored Core. The gritty mecha action game, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, was a tremendous critical hit and it looks like FromSoftware doesn’t want to be done with the franchise just yet. A new job posting from the company says “several new projects” are in the works, and one of those projects in particular asks for familiarity with “mecha.” After the success of Armored Core VI, it’s hard to see that clue as pointing to anything else.
The job posting, first spotted by PSU, comes from FromSoftware’s careers page and was also shared on the company’s recruiting account on X. These roles were launched as part of a recruitment drive to gear up for multiple upcoming projects, and while almost nothing is known about any of those projects, there’s a little bit of information on the description for a “Character Designer” role.
As you might expect, the role is focused on creating concept art, characters, and creatures, but specifically states that the candidate must “understand the concept of the game and role of the characters in a mecha game,” as well as needs “mecha design experience.”
It’s hard to not see the words ‘FromSoftware’ and ‘mecha’ and not immediately think of Armored Core, and that does indeed seem like the most likely candidate. The company has only made one other mecha game in its history, 2004’s Metal Wolf Chaos — a satirical spin on the genre where you play as the president of the United States of America, fighting off a rebel military invasion in a mech suit.
Metal Wolf Chaos is a pretty obscure callback, however, and it’s much more likely From wants to continue to capitalize on Armored Core. In an interview with IGN Japan earlier this year, Hidetaka Miyazaki called Armored Core a “very important” franchise, meaning the company clearly has plans to continue the franchise.
It’ll be interesting to see what the timeline for another game could look like, as before 2023’s release of Fires of Rubicon the last game we’d seen from the series was all the way back in 2013, with Armored Core: Verdict Day.
Obviously, we won’t need to wait that long again, but what comes next from the studio is pretty unknown at the moment. Shadow of the Erdtree capped off Elden Ring, we’ve not heard confirmation of a new Dark Souls game since 2016’s Dark Souls 3. For the first time in years, it really feels like we have no idea what’s coming next
Given FromSoftware’s cadence of releases, their next game will most likely be a new IP, along the lines of Bloodborne or Sekiro, and a new Armored Core game sometime after that. It’s fair to say that FromSoftware has never been bigger or more well-known than right now, and the studio will likely be looking to up the ante for whatever it does next after nearly three straight years of award-winning releases.
