Armoured Core 6 criticism sparks discourse about Elden Ring’s graphics and game engines

Elden Ring players continue to get a lot of mileage out of the game, mainly thanks to mods and bizarre challenge runs, as they wait for more news on its highly-anticipated DLC. Meanwhile, many FromSoft fans are eagerly anticipating the arrival of Armoured Core 6.

The game, which was revealed at last year’s Game Awards, is set to arrive on August 25 and treat players to plenty of action-packed mech battles.

However, the graphical fidelity in which these encounters will be rendered has recently become a talking point on Twitter (or X, if you prefer), serving as the latest chapter in a long-running discourse about game engines.

What do you think of what you’ve seen of Armoured Core 6’s visuals to this point?

This debate was seemingly kicked off by a post from an indie developer going by the handle LynnV, with them having taken issue with some things said in a video preview of the game by Fextralife.

In the clip from the video picked out by the developer, its narrator discusses the game’s graphics, suggesting that they “suffer, kind of the way Elden Ring’s graphics suffered,” from the decision to bring the game to last-gen consoles. They also assert that FromSoftware should consider switching to a “newer” engine in order to avoid “falling further and further behind the industry.”

As you can imagine, these viewpoints have proven controversial. Many of those responding the clip outright rejected the idea that Elden Ring’s graphics didn’t deliver great visuals, or reiterated that switching to a different engine isn’t the kind of miracle solution some outside of the games industry believe it to be.

“I'm begging everyone to stop saying things like ‘the engine is outdated’ like it's intelligent criticism,” tweeted Warner Bros Games Montreal’s Mitch Dyer, adding: “It's a silly thing to say on its own because you just flat-out do not know anything about their tech or pipelines, but it's also not how art is created.”

Meanwhile, Noclip’s Danny O'Dwyer argued that the comments might have been more well-received if they had been presented as the narrator’s opinion: saying: “Clearly these elements matter to this YouTuber, but it’s arrogant to assume his preferences represent an objective, universal truth.”

Regardless of where you stand in this graphical debate, make sure to follow us for guides to both Armoured Core 6 and Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree as soon as they arrive.