FromSoftware's previous flagship franchise, the Armored Core mecha combat series, has returned to the stage with the surprise reveal of Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon at the 2022 Game Awards, but longtime fans will have to wait awhile to play. The premiere trailer for this latest Armored Core title stated the game would be released sometime in 2023; to endure the wait, Armored Core fans should check out these tabletop RPGs, each ideal for telling stories about giant robot-piloting mercenaries.
Like the thematically related Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries and Battletech games, the gameplay of the Armored Core series mixes combat and customization, letting players swap out the parts their highly modular Armored Core mechas between missions. Plot-wise, the protagonists of most Armored Core games are Ravens, mech-piloting mercenaries hired by futuristic mega-corporations to fight over the resources of a decaying earth. The mecha genre tabletop RPGs below have a lot in common with the Armored Core franchise and its sixth entry - both in of game mechanics and storytelling.
Apocalypse Frame Homages The Premise Of Most Armored Core Games
The narrative premise of Apocalypse Frame comes across as a blend of Armored Core and Command & Conquer game plots. In a future timeline, an alien substance called the Infection crash-lands on Earth, spreading rampantly across the planet and nearly causing the extinction of the human race. A world government called the Republic halts the infection in its tracks with humanoid war machines called Frames, but devolves into a dictatorial regime that oppresses the surviving humans, not unlike the Golden Order's treatment of non-humans under the rule of Elden Ring's Queek Marika the Eternal. Players of Apocalypse Frame take on the role of Aces, elite Frame pilots from a breakaway polity called the Collective that wages a war of liberation against the Republic.
In the core rules of Apocalypse Frame, Pilots and Frames each have three distinct attributes to describe their capabilities, and Frames can be customized between missions with a large selection of modular weapons and systems. Gameplay in Apocalypse Frame alternates between roleplay-focused downtime periods and fast-paced tactical combat scenarios where players pit their characters against enemy Frame pilots or mutated wildlife. These narrative, fast-paced combat mechanics are built off of the Lumen RPG system, originally designed for the Destiny-style Looter Shooter tabletop RPG called Light.
Beam Saber Is Inspired By Armored Core & Tells Brutal War Stories
The science-fiction mecha combat setting of Beam Saber blends elements of Armored Core games and the original, still wildly popular Mobile Suit Gundam animation. Five outer-space political factions, oriented around extreme version of ideologies like Democracy and Oligarchy, are fighting over who gets to control the Earth, cradle of humankind. Players in Beam Saber portray mecha pilots in a military squadron trying to survive this war.
The varying playbooks of the Beam Saber Mecha RPG correspond to different protagonist archetypes seen in Mecha genre fiction - the Ace pilot, the Empath, the Technician - and are derived from the similar playbooks in the Forged In The Dark tabletop RPG system. The robotic Vehicles they control are customized by the players using a set of Vehicle Attributes, gear loadouts, and player-designed Quirks. A game group playing a campaign of Beam Saber also chooses a Squad Playbook outlining the mission of their PCs (Frontline Combat, Recon, R&D, etc.)
The Lancer RPG Has Crunchy Mech Customization Like Armored Core
The Lancer mech RPG, designed and published by Massif Press, blends "crunchy" but accessible rules with a vividly detailed far-future science fiction setting where humanity has spread across the galaxy. In this game setting, Lancer player characters can create heavily customized war machines using weapons, systems, and AI modules from any of the trademarked Mecha licenses they currently possess. Then they get to put these custom mechs to the test using tactical Dungeons & Dragons fourth edition-inspired combat rules.
The core rulebook of Lancer is full of entries describing different factions and causes player characters can fight for or against using their giant robots. Of these factions, the morally grey mech pilots of Mirrorsmoke Mercenary Company bear the closest resemblance to the ethically challenged Ravens of Armored Core. Additionally, the mechs made by IPS-Northstar and Harrison Armory are aesthetically similar to the stark, angular frames of the Armored Core series.
Players who want to run an Armored Core-inspired tabletop RPG campaign using the Lancer system should consider grabbing the Long Rim sourcebook. The interstellar frontier setting this sourcebook describes - far away from the utopian core worlds of Union or the Machiavellian, scheming, Dune-style space aristocracy of the Karrakin Trades Baronies - is ideal for telling stories about mecha mercenaries living from paycheck to paycheck. This Long Rim sourcebook also has useful rules for simulating profits from mercenary contracts, collateral damage, etc.
The ECH0 Mecha RPG Can Tell Stories About The Aftermath Of Armored Core Games
The tagline of ECH0 is as follows: "Peace. Kids playing in mech wreckage. A ghost." Unlike the other Mecha RPGs listed above, ECH0 is a GM-less tabletop roleplaying game centered around memory, mourning, and moving on. As far as Armored Core parallels go, the premise of ECH0 is most closely linked to the cinematic scene in the Armored Core 6 Game Awards trailer (viewable on YouTube from PlayStation) where a smaller, civilian robot scavenges mech parts and limbs from a battlefield junkyard.
In an RPG game session of ECH0, three or more players portray a group of children who are playing among the wreckage of giant, militarized mechs, remnants of a war long past - imagery FromSoftware evoked with Elden Ring's brutal war known as The Shattering. One player portrays a mech pilot - or rather, a digital copy of a mech pilot's mind in a damaged hard drive. With six-sided dice, charts, and a series of map-drawing RPG mechanics, players of ECH0 tell a story of children leading a digital ghost back to the mech their original self fought and died in.
Players who want to tell an Armored Core-inspired story using ECH0 won't have access to any sophisticated rules for tactical combat, or intricate design rules for creating custom machines of war. With an open-minded mindset, however, Armored Core fans and FromSoftware fans interested in the Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon can use the narrative prompts of ECH0 to create a vivid, living world scarred and healing from the fires of mechanized robotic warfare.
Sources: PlayStation/YouTube
