Don’t sleep on Armored Core 6’s melee weapons

Psst. Listen here, Armored Core newbie. Do you want to know a secret? 

Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is secretly a Bloodborne sequel—if you know how to play it like one, that is. Swap out grotesque monsters for towering mechs, and the same mindset of dancing around your enemies while taking opportunistic slashes at them still applies. Don’t leave your close-quarters combat skills in Yharnam, because they’ll be useful on Rubicon 3 as well.

You get the BU-TT/A Pulse Blade as part of your starting kit, and it’s quite tempting to leave it in the dust with the rest of your substandard starter gear. But you’ll need it if you want to unlock your Armored Core’s true potential, especially in the early game. You need to be as aggressive as possible, getting right up in your enemy’s face—and much like Bloodborne, AC6 drives this lesson home with its first boss. 

Related: Armored Core 6: How to beat the first boss – PCA heavy combat helicopter

Your immediate instinct might be to hang back and rely on your assault rifle and missile launcher to deal with the PCA heavy combat helicopter—perfectly understandable, right? 

This strategy typically ends in seconds, as the helicopter’s relentless missile barrages will tear through your health like a wet paper towel. The lesson here? Get up close, and stay there. Closing that gap is what made the game click for me, and shredding through the helicopter’s health bar felt like second nature when I called upon the muscle memory I’d built up through years of playing Dark Souls and its spinoffs.

Even after the first boss fight, your melee weapons remain a viable strategy throughout the entire game, even more so when you take advantage of Quick Boost to close the distance. There’s little more gratifying in AC6 than launching yourself straight at an enemy mech, slashing them twice with your laser sword before following up with a shotgun blast to the face.

While the variety of melee weapons in AC6 isn’t quite as broad as the dozens of ranged weapons available, what is there feels distinct enough to stay relevant, including yet another iteration of FromSoftware’s legendary recurring weapon, the Moonlight Greatsword. Like nearly every other aspect of AC6, you’ll never be short of options if you feel like turning your 50-foot-tall fighting robot into a ninja. 

There are only nine known melee weapons in the game including the Moonlight Greatsword, but like ACs themselves, they all cater to different playstyles. Weapons like the Double Chainsaw have their place, but the Vvc-770LB Laser Blade quickly became a fast favorite: Slashing and sweeping with a katana made of pure energy as you bisect enemies caught in your path just feels so cool.

At the end of the day, you might prefer to snipe enemy mechs from the other side of the battlefield, but a close-range approach is just as feasible, and melee weapons could even help Soulsborne fans settle into AC6’s unfamiliar combat loop. One thing’s for sure, at least: The other mechs won’t be expecting it.