Armored Core V

Armored Core V is the fifth numbered entry in FromSoftware's mech series and in many ways the most ambitious attempt to bring the series to a wider audience and to modern online play. The player once again sits in the cockpit of a war mech called an Armored Core and fights on behalf of one of the factions in a world devastated by an earlier conflict, where individual corporations, mercenary units, and resistance groups compete for control over the remaining resources and territory both on the surface and underground, where humanity has partly retreated following the previous catastrophe.

Compared to previous entries, the game placed a stronger emphasis on teamwork and tactics - it introduced a command system allowing the player to issue orders to allies controlled by AI or by other players, and missions often require capturing and defending control points rather than the purely straightforward action runs of older entries. Mech customization remained as deep as before, with a wide range of parts affecting weaponry, mobility, and defense and the ability to finely tune every aspect of the machine, and the game placed greater emphasis on cooperative and competitive multiplayer, which became one of the main pillars of content, including an extensive team-based base-capture mode outside the main campaign.

Technically, the game offered more detailed environments and more elaborate explosion and damage effects on PS3 than earlier entries, although the series' engine was, even at this point, still recognizable by its distinctive, technical, and deliberately heavier controls that the series traditionally maintains and that demand patience and practice from players. The atmosphere remains dark and war-torn, with electronic and industrial music accompanying the battles and minimalist storytelling through text messages and briefings. Contemporary reviews praised the ambition of the shift toward more tactical, team-based play and the sophistication of the multiplayer modes, while also pointing out that the game moved away from some traditional elements of the series and that the single-player campaign felt secondary compared to the online component. For players interested in mechs and tactical action combat, this is an interesting, if polarizing, entry with its own identity within the series, one that experimented with a direction the series could have taken.

Why play it: Anyone who appreciates a more tactical, team-oriented multiplayer and more elaborate machine damage will find an interesting shift in the series here, even though the single-player campaign feels weaker by comparison.