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Mech pilots have emotions, too. Armored Core VI is a sport about blowing up every part in sight with a smorgasbord of overpowered weapons. However it’s additionally a sport about useless, self-righteous males who assume it’s their God-given proper to take over a planet. Whilst you solely know them as codenames, characters like Snail and Handler Walter vie for energy all through the sport’s story.
However in a stroke of brilliance, absolutely the ultimate boss of Armored Core VI isn’t any of these huge personalities, however fairly the pettiest weasel you could possibly think about, somebody whose very existence facilities round spite for the participant. It’s a subversive twist that cleverly reimagines a longstanding trope of the mecha style, and creates probably the most unforgettable video-game villain of 2023.
Purchase Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon: Amazon | Finest Purchase | GameStop

You first meet G5 Iguazu just some missions into AC6, when the participant, referred to as “621,” helps the Redguns assault a dam complicated. He makes a robust impression, bemoaning the truth that he now has to babysit a “freelancer.” Your first time by the sport, Iguazu merely looks like a bottom-of-the-barrel grunt, the whiny character who’s inevitably one of many first to chunk the bullet.
Whereas that’s true in your first playthrough, issues with Iguazu get actually fascinating in your second and third instances by the sport. That is the place you begin to be taught extra about him—and the way a lot he despises your very existence.

Greater than a rival
Information logs reveal that Iguazu was a back-alley gambler who misplaced huge, and have become an augmented human to repay his money owed. This then led to him being recruited by the Redguns, and coming nose to nose with 621. At first he’s merely aggravated by you, however as he grows extra conscious of your piloting abilities, the hate begins creeping in.
As you betray and dismantle the Redguns, Iguazu voices his open resentment of your abilities and your freedom. You, the participant, are every part Iguazu can by no means be. You’re a grasp of your personal future, whereas Iguazu finds himself caught in a battle he cares little about, unable to free himself from its shackles. Each single interplay you will have with Iguazu, you possibly can see his resentment rising, little by little.
After the Redguns are formally dismantled, he takes a contract contract and launches a shock ambush on you. Sarcastically, he’s fully unaware of the AI named All-Thoughts, which has been pulling the strings all alongside. His revenge plot foiled, in absolute desperation he takes a “take care of the satan,” letting All-Thoughts increase him into the right killing machine. He believes his freedom with the singular aim of spiteing you the participant, your loss of life the one factor on his thoughts.

Inhuman nature
All this culminates within the defining second that cements Iguazu as a villain for the ages. The top of your third playthrough of AC6 reveals all of the machinations of All-Thoughts, and as you method the ultimate battle you see Iguazu has been warped past recognition, now piloting an experimental swimsuit constructed from the entire simulation battles you accomplished. Which means that Iguazu’s new type is kind of actually constructed from all of the folks you killed and backstabbed to get so far. He’s fairly actually the avatar of every part and everybody that’s been thrown in opposition to you on Rubicon.
That collective will would possibly appear to be the ultimate boss, however in one other staggering twist, midway by the battle Iguazu realizes that your associate, Ayre, has been affecting his thoughts this complete time. By means of sheer drive of will, he shuts All-Thoughts out and banishes Ayre from the combat. Iguauzu realizes he’s misplaced his freedom, however in a ultimate act he ranges the enjoying area, lastly paving the way in which for the one-on-one duel he’s craved all alongside.
Again and again, the participant overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds, eschewing the plans of companies and highly effective folks within the identify of true freedom. Iguazu is the opposite aspect of that coin. He’s a person with out free will who discovered function by a singular obsession of destroying you. You took totally different paths however arrived on the identical place, the identical reply. For a sport that tells its story in such a minimalist method, it’s unexpectedly introspective and philosophical.
It’s not usually you see a villain actually signify the worst elements of us—not simply want for energy however pettiness, spite, jealousy, and hate. Iguazu is the right reflection of the participant themselves, and somebody that suffers for all of our actions. Even regardless of all that, he finds a second of respect within the ultimate battle, a solidarity for the undesirable life that has been compelled on the each of you.
For those who lose to Iguazu within the ultimate battle, his final line sums issues up completely: “Go away a spot for me in Hell.”
Armored Core VI is out now for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.
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