As a remake of the 2006 PS2 role-playing game, Persona 3 Reload sees the S.E.E.S. of Gekkoukan Academy investigating the Dark Hour to stop the Shadows from overtaking the city. It involves venturing into Tartarus, a foreboding tower full of threats, to learn the truth alongside their Persona. The visuals and soundtrack are revamped – check out the new opening track here.

Persona 3 Reload will be available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. It’s also launching on day one for Game Pass. Though it isn’t planned for the Nintendo Switch, Atlus says the “idea is there,” so stay tuned for updates. In the meantime, check out the day one DLC here.

Speaking recently with Atomix, when asked about the possibility of Persona 3 Reload coming to the Nintendo Switch, director Takuya Yamaguchi and producer Ryota Niitsuma said, “Since we started conceptualizing everything that was coming in Persona 3 Reload, we decided that there would be no version for the Nintendo Switch. Of course, the idea is there, but it’s a matter of discussing it with the team and seeing what they think about it and we’ll see what happens.”

Another major upcoming Atlus release, Metaphor: ReFantazio, is also due out this year, and like Persona 3 Reload, it also isn’t coming to the Nintendo Switch. Of course, with leaks strongly suggesting that Nintendo’s next console will be out sometime in the second half of 2024, one has to wonder whether Atlus is saving its new flagship releases for that rather than bringing it to a console that’s clearly in the final stages of its active lifecycle.

Persona 3 Reload will launch for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC on February 2. It will also be available via Game Pass at launch.

And if it wasn’t for Yasunori Ogura’s gameplay snippets shared during Summer Games Fest, we wouldn’t have an awful lot of footage to go off, as FromSoft have taken the unorthodox approach of showcasing the bulk of Armored Core 6’s gameplay at invite only behind closed doors events. A questionable marketing strategy, perhaps, but the Tokyo-headquartered studio have built up a lot of goodwill from its fanbase with the runaway successes of Elden Ring, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Bloodborne, and not to mention the Dark Souls trilogy, that hype would still be at fever pitch had they not shown any Fires of Rubicon gameplay up to now. But, as it happens, any concerns Armored Core 6 is just Dark Souls with robots have been well and truly quashed with Ogura’s five-or-so minute foray through remote planet Rubicon 3’s industrial battlegrounds.

Make no mistake, Armored Core 6’s action looks fast and ferocious with the demo also highlighting a tactical element underpinned by extensive customisation; the variety on offer in mech assembly inevitably leading to numerous playstyles and approaches to completing Fires of Rubicon’s missions. Whilst Armored Core 6 eschews open-world design in favour of linear level structure, there’s certainly no sense of linearity here. Vast, open spaces can be traversed a multitude of ways depending on mech loadout: equip a mech with aerial boosters and lightweight weaponry to glide across huge chasms instantaneously or weigh down with heavy artillery to forge a way across on foot or via bridges instead. There’s a grand sense of scale in Rubicon 3’s rusted foundries with FromSoftware evidently placing much emphasis on verticality; upwards, diagonal, and side to side movement are just as important as grounded horizontal. The widescreen panorama of disused factories and industrial wasteland contrasts nicely with compact, claustrophobic corridors too, requiring players make ample use of their mech’s strafing ability to navigate through twisting metal trouble-free.

We do get a close if limited look at some of the customisations on offer in Armored Core 6’s gameplay preview: it appears mechs can be equipped with up to four weapons and shields across arms and shoulders. We see glimpses of melee and ranged weaponry: laser daggers, missile launchers, and multi lock-on rockets. Leg augmentations appear to influence traversal in exchange for defensive capability. For instance, the lightweight bi-pedal crawler or reverse joint seem to sacrifice stability and defence to maximise jumping, agility, and dodging capability. Intriguingly, back-mounted power generators balance raw power with overall mech weight, and there’re generators capable of powering specific types of weapons only. The sheer number of stats, meters, parts, and gauges and how they all interact with each other risks overwhelming some, but one thing is for sure: mech loadouts will constantly be in flux. Players will be forced to make consistent trade-offs between firepower, defence, mobility, and power when specifying their killing machines, and as this has been a draw of the series from day one it’ll likely prove a fruitful endeavour for most.

Don’t forget this is a FromSoftware title, so expect enemies to pose a tough test with the familiar premise of learning attack patterns necessary to survival; mech loadouts provide players plenty of creativity in this regard though. Long-range scanners can highlight enemy placement with the possibility of bulky ordinance clearing out swathes of territory from distance, or perhaps the ruthlessness of a mech armed to the teeth with vicious melee weapons could swiftly strafe between opponents, speedily slicing multiple enemies down hack and slash style. Player choice really does seem front and centre, although it must be said from the gameplay shared thus far a blend of gunpower with hand-to-hand weaponry appears most optimal due to the especially powerful thwack of melee swords and laser daggers.

Owing to Armored Core 6’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice style stagger meter, a fluid combination of dodging, shooting, strafing, stunning, then scything looks to be the most satisfactory way to destroy an opposing mech. An emphasis on boss battles represents another deviation for the series, with a colossal molten metal spewing tank the most threatening test of dodging skill present in Armored Core 6’s gameplay previews.

Whether players will eventually gravitate towards an all-rounder to see them through Fires of Rubicon’s storyline, or whether they’ll be forced to make mech alterations mid-mission remains to be seen, but it’s a tantalising prospect to land on a loadout suited to individual playstyle as much as one demanded by Rubicon 3’s layout and boss encounters.

And just a quick word on Fires of Rubicon’s level design: this is an organic world of rocky, Earth-like terrain overgrown by metal, shards, and pipework, all corroded and grey. These are bleak, cold industrial landscapes beautifully imagined, with sharp lighting and sparing use of colour providing a glimmer of interest to what could have easily been an overly monotone setting. The intricacy of Rubicon 3, functionally designed yet minimal, is a triumph; FromSoftware’s environment artists deserve huge kudos. Likewise, Armored Core 6’s sound design team deserve praise too, not just for the piercing, rip-roaring explosions, and jetpack sound effects punctuating the barren wasteland, but for the pulsating soundtrack performed by in-house music band FreQuency too, comprising members of the sound team plus Armored Core composer Kota Hoshino.

FromSoftware, and indeed publisher Bandai Namco, have been very clear in stating Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is not a Soulslike. Yes, Armored Core 6’s design philosophy shares a lot of common ground with FromSoft mainstays Dark Souls and Bloodborne, but movement, weaponry, and setting evoke something distinct from FromSoft’s usual fayre. Sure, the satisfaction of overcoming the stress and frustration of a seemingly impossible situation – a major selling point for Soulslike fans – takes precedence in Fires of Rubicon too, but the game’s producer Yasunori Ogura stresses Armored Core 6 seeks to modernise the Armored Core formula by leveraging elements from their dark fantasy RPGs. It’ll share connective tissue with Dark Souls for sure – firm but fair combat for one – but Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is very much its own thing.

Launching August 25^th to PlayStation 4 and 5 (with a free upgrade from PS4 to PS5), Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, plus PC via Steam, Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is set to be one of the biggest games of the year, not by default, but because the prospect of FromSoftware turning back the clock to reinvigorate and revitalise their formative series with modern knowhow is too tantalising to ignore.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

We are officially in Q2 now, but it seems the wait for The Witcher 3 on new-gen machines has been extended again. Taking recently to Twitter, CD Projekt RED announced that the remainder of The Witcher 3’s new-gen port is going to be developed internally by the studio itself. Until now, Saber Interactive – who also brought the game to the Nintendo Switch in 2019 – had been in charge of the port.

As a result of this change, however, the next-gen port’s release date has been delayed once more, with CDPR saying that its launch has been pushed back internally as the studio evaluates “the scope of the work to be done.”

“We’ll update you as soon as we can,” the developer writes.

Recently, CD Projekt RED also announced that the next mainline The Witcher game has started development. It and other future CDPR games will be built on Unreal Engine 5.

We'll update you as soon as we can. Thank you for your understanding. 2/2

— The Witcher (@witchergame) April 13, 2022