10 Video Games You Didn't Realise Were Originally Open World
6. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
FromSoftware proved beyond any doubt that they could handle an open world game with their masterful Elden Ring, and at one point their follow-up title almost adopted the very same style.
In an interview shortly before the release of Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, director Masaru Yamamura revealed that during early development FromSoftware flirted with making the long-awaited franchise reboot an open world game.
Yamamura said that the team discussed developing Armored Core VI in a more open style which would allow for greater exploration and movement, though ultimately decided against it, feeling that it would take away from some of the series' charm.
Yamamura added that an open world style would've required the team to scale back the game's AC customisation features in order to ensure that every loadout could accommodate a huge map, and they simply didn't want to do that.
While IP reboots often do something drastic to differentiate themselves from what came before, Armored Core VI laudably stayed the course and retained the purity of the series, rather than cribbing ideas from the developers' successes elsewhere.