With Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon only a week away, you may be tempted to pre-order the game to secure your spot on the front lines of the corporate resource wars of the dark future.
Like it or not, pre-orders and their associated bonuses have been a fixture of modern gaming for some time now, and AC6 is no exception—but what exactly are you entitled to for throwing down your mech money ahead of time?
Armored Core 6 pre–order bonuses for all editions
As is the standard for FromSoftware, the offerings for both the pre-order bonus and the various deluxe editions are nice treats for hardcore fans of the game—the Collector’s and Premium editions come packed with physical extras like a statue, steelbook case, and in the case of the Premium edition, a scale model of an Armored Core garage.
Given the hefty price tags that also come attached, though, most players will probably content themselves with the more accessible Standard or Deluxe editions, which don’t come with as many extras but are considerably cheaper.
| Tenderfoot Set | Digital Soundtrack | Artbook | Figurine | Steelbook | Pins | Stickers | Armored Core Garage | |
| Standard (physical/digital) | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Deluxe (digital only) | Yes | Yes | Yes; digital copy | No | No | No | No | No |
| Collector’s (physical only) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Premium (physical only) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
You may notice pre-ordering any edition entitles you to the same bonus: the Tenderfoot customization set, which includes mech parts, a decal, and a special emblem, in case you wanted to make your very own fighting robot look a bit like a knockoff Optimus Prime.
It’s important to note the Tenderfoot parts and emblem can also be earned through normal progression, making the pre-order essentially an early unlock—granted, at no extra cost if you already know you’ll be playing. On the other hand, deciding not to pre-order isn’t that big of a deal, as you can always grab your Tenderfoot parts later on.
Interestingly, the pre-order bonus is actually a callback to 2002’s Armored Core 3. The series as a whole deals with far-future corporatism run amok, which permeates every aspect from the story to the level design to the gameplay. Every part you can equip on your mech is manufactured by one of a select group of in-universe corporations, each with benefits and drawbacks—and Armored Core was doing this way before Borderlands.
The Tenderfoot parts you get from pre-ordering AC6 are a remade version of a part set from AC3 manufactured by the CREST corporation (who haven’t been seen since) thus making it a fun Easter egg for longtime fans of the series and more crucially giving them a little nudge to pick it up.
While many AAA pre-order bonuses seem to be designed around pressuring players to spend money as soon as possible out of fear of missing out, it’s refreshing to see FromSoftware buck the trend and offer something a bit more reasonable.
In the end, there’s no wrong answer here, and no one is losing out on anything by pre-ordering or not pre-ordering—and isn’t that the way it should be all the time?
