(Image credit: Bandai Namco)
Award-winning game developer FromSoftware may have dominated industry conversations with its 2022 smash hit Elden Ring, but the studio is riding that high well into 2023 with the upcoming release of Armored Core 6. The action-packed mecha title is the latest in a series that FromSoftware has been making for well over 20 years, and it promises fans tons of exhilarating mech-on-mech combat across a wide variety of levels with an even greater number of weapons and parts to choose from.
With the game’s arrival imminent, FromSoftware and Bandai Namco have revealed all the details about its specific launch time, when you can preload the game, its download size, and more. Here’s a complete overview of everything you need to know.
Armored Core 6: Launch date and start times
While Armored Core 6’s official release date is listed as August 25, 2023, the game may unlock for you in the evening of August 24 if you’re playing on Windows PC and live in a western region. This is because the game is scheduled to launch on PC globally on August 24 at 10 p.m. UTC, while on consoles, it will become available on August 25 at midnight in your local time zone.
If you’re a PC player and you’re not sure what the conversion of the 10 p.m. UTC launch time to your time zone is, don’t worry. For your convenience, we’ve done the conversions ourselves in the list below. Note that if you don’t see your time zone below, you can use this handy converter to do the conversion yourself.
- Aug. 24, 3:00 p.m. PT
- Aug. 24, 6:00 p.m. ET
- Aug. 24, 7:00 p.m. BRT
- Aug. 24, 11:00 p.m. BST
- Aug. 25, 12:00 a.m. CEST
- Aug. 25, 1:00 a.m. TRT
- Aug. 25, 7:00 a.m. KST
- Aug. 25, 8:00 a.m. AEST
- Aug. 25, 10:00 a.m. NZST
Armored Core 6: Preload date and time
Like most other AAA games, Armored Core 6 will be available to preload — or download ahead of time — before it actually launches and becomes playable. This ensures you can install it in advance and jump right in as soon as it unlocks, which is particularly beneficial to folks that have slower internet connections. This does require preordering the title, however, so be aware of that.
The game is actually available to preload on Xbox right now, so if you’ve secured your Armored Core 6 preorder on Microsoft’s platform, you can already take care of the download. The preload date for PlayStation hasn’t been officially announced, though a leak suggests preloads will unlock on August 23.
There’s been no word of preloads for the PC version of the game yet, but we expect that FromSoftware and Bandai Namco will officially announce preload information for both PlayStation and PC soon.
Armored Core 6: How to play and download
As long as you’ve purchased Armored Core 6, the game can be installed (if preloads are unlocked) and then played (provided the game has released). If you’re interested in checking out what FromSoftware’s new game is all about, follow the steps below. They go over how to download and play the title on each of the platforms it’s on.
Windows PC (Steam)
- Launch the Steam desktop client. Download it here if you don’t have it already.
- Next, select the Library tab.
- In the Library search bar, type Armored Core VI.
- When it appears, select Armored Core VI.
- Note that if the game isn’t in your Library, you still need to purchase it from the Store tab of the Steam client. Click it and search for Armored Core VI to find the game’s store page.
- To download and install the game, select the Install button.
- Finally, select Play once the installation finishes to play Armored Core VI.
Xbox
- First, launch the Xbox Store.
- In the Store’s search bar, search for Armored Core VI.
- From the results that appear, select Armored Core VI.
- Next, select Download.
- If you see the option to purchase the game instead, you still need to buy it.
- Finally, select Play once the installation is complete.
- Moving forward, you can also launch Armored Core 6 from the “My games and apps” menu.
PlayStation
- First, launch the PlayStation Store.
- In the search bar, search for Armored Core VI.
- Next, select Armored Core VI from the results that appear.
- Then, select Download.
- If the option to purchase the game appears instead, you still need to buy it.
- Finally, select Play once the installation finishes.
- In the future, you can start the game from your PlayStation dashboard.
Armored Core 6: Download size
Most AAA games these days are quite large in terms of file size, but Armored Core 6 is actually pretty small compared to something like Starfield or Baldur’s Gate 3. In fact, on Xbox, the game is only 53.28GB, while the Armored Core 6 PC spec requirements confirm that you’ll only need 60GB to install it.
The size of the game on PlayStation hasn’t been announced officially, but the same leak that included the preload date also suggests that it will be 55.669GB on PS4, and 43.340 GB on PS5. As soon as we have concrete details about Armored Core 6’s file size on PlayStation, we’ll update this article.
Something important to note is that these sizes don’t take things like day one patches into account, which may add to the amount of storage the game takes up. For that reason, we recommend leaving a little bit of extra storage on your drive so that you have it available if you need it.
Armored Core 6 is scheduled to launch on August 25, and it’s expected to be one of the best Xbox games and best PC games of 2023. We can’t wait to jump in, especially after having our minds blown by FromSoftware’s last game, Elden Ring.