One odd thing is that the Armored Core series takes a somewhat detached approach to canon, having been through a few full timeline resets. Because of this, the big and small ACs don't have a lot of crossover, it's usually a fresh start between generations, with a few notable exceptions.
@@Gortallyes but also no. all the ac games from ac 3 to VD takes place in the same universe just a few years later after the last game. for example 4 sequel takes place just 2 - 5 years after 4 and AC 5 takes place 10 years after ending B of ac:fa. AC timeline is much more readable than a FF timeline
Actually, I found this theory on the AC discord that compared an RJ with the apartments in the wall climber mission, and it was three storeys tall. Assuming each is the irl average for apartments, being 4.3 metres, they estimated the AC was between 12 to 15 metres tall. Either cars are massive again, or the buildings are unusually small. Hell more to backup the cars are massive theory can be found later in the same mission, as there are walkways in the elevator to Juggernaught that are TINY in comparison to the AC, so this might be an issue of From scaling things weird, or cars are unreasonably huge
worth noting that the final boss of verdict day, a modified NEXT, is absolutely titanic compared to the urban ACs used by the player. so in at least one game we have a direct comparison between two eras of AC
What about the final boss of AC4? that one looks like a different generation to the player too. I can't fully remember but I think the level was called barren earth or something. I distinctly remember the size of the enemy and it's massive weapons though.
@@Valfheim That's the 00 Aretha, the 'Mutant Core'. It's a bit of an anomaly - if I recall it's an early machine which explains why it's so big. It has some successors in ACFA which are down to regular NEXT size.
@@Valfheim The 00-Aretha is a prototype NEXT, so a lot of the components that modern NEXT's had weren't miniaturized for the Aretha, meaning it had to use a larger frame to accomodate the tech. It's the same reason why you have the Nu Gundam be a 23 metre behemoth and the newer F91 be a tiny 15m, the F-91 being newer tech can fit the same amount of power in a smaller frame.
@@shirosaki97 its mostly because pre-UC 100 the arms race was more Bigger and stronger weaponry wich caused the powerplant reactors for each suit to be bigger to allow more for more power and after UC-100 there was quite a long time with no war so development time could be used to make reactors smaller and stronger
I think for Souls games in particular, the player is shorter than most enemies both to convey a sense of threat to the enemy/weakness to the player, as well as for the practical reason of ensuring the lock-on camera can center an enemy and the player on screen without obscuring objects in the distance by forcing the camera above them. For AC, I'd assume the same is true. They want you to fight giant robots and vehicles many times larger than you, so the player is comparatively small so as to not clog up the limited screen space.
That made sense in PS1 and previous games. Makes no sense now. It would be equivalent of a shooter making human enemies bigger so the player feels more intimidated. Just make enemies RIGHT! Even small enemies can be threatening if done correctly.
@@hermitcard4494 the only threatening small enemies are the annoying ones, that much is true of even fromsoft games. Also, I suggest you play more shooters because plenty of them have bigger enemies for that sole purpose.
As a newcomer to the ac series, it was actually alot larger than i thought, it didnt sink in until the mission with the boss before the cargo cannon, theres a small area underneath with some cars and it was the size of the ac's foot, for some reason i expected a car to be about a 1/4th the size, not easily an 1/8th or smaller, the scale of everything else just seemed right? But when you take into account the ACTUAL size, everything is GARGANTUAN
If you really pay attention in a lot of maps there are tons of details on the buildings and things that really show off the scale. Little catwalks, stairs and ladders, the doors and windows on buildings etc. It's pretty awesome and really shows off the megastructure nature of most of the buildings in most of the maps.
Going back to your videos on Sekiro, it seems like Fromsoft has a habit of playing fast and loose with the size of characters for the sake of gameplay or spectacle. (Also thinking of the common trope in manga where a character who is merely taller than the rest of the cast can vary in relative height, from merely "tall" to "filling the entire room" as it suits the mood of the scene)
@@zchen27 Don't forget how several characters in JoJo despite being canonically 5 ft can suddenly morph from a tall titan that looks to be 7 ft tall to a shortstack that looks 3.5 ft tall depending on seemingly random artistic metaphors.
I've noticed in one of the first missions that there are also huge cars with ladders something like Caterpillar 797 and u are TOWERING over them looking like u are at least 30m considering these cars are about 7.5m tall. But then in same place you can see more common cars like the one you showed and they seem oversized (or caterpillar car are undersized). Clearly they didn't scale everything to be realistic so its hard to tell how tall AC really is...
There are human sized doorways on a few of the maps. It would be interesting to see if they are all roughly the same size and to try the scale the AC's off of that. I agree that the vehicle models are an unreliable standard.
Yeah, I noticed this too and was going to comment that the car shown here seemed vastly off compared to other parts of the game. In the mission where you investigate the arsenal that went dark, there are several huge heavy duty trucks, looking like the kind that would be used to transport tanks. They have three shipping containers stacked on top of each other up on their trailers, and you tower above those. This was when I first stopped to consider the ACs scale properly, and it gave me the impression that AC6 has the biggest generation of ACs.
@@nathanpapp432Even the smaller buildings like air control towers look absolutely dwarfed by our ACs, but in comparison the cars make our ACs look slightly shorter.
@NightmareBlade10 There was a car next to what looked to be a Caterpillar dump truck, and I thought the car seemed too big in comparison till I noticed the rear door. That car looks to be some sort of armored personal carrier than a regular sized car.
An interesting note is that Armored Core has been (to me at least) an iteration of mecha after the western iteration of Battletech, which explains why AC's are around 10m tall (fitting with Battletech's scale of mechs to boot). So it makes sense that we finally get to measure them in-game properly and we see that while they are much faster than battletech mechs of the same mass they are the same height.
@@ghoulbuster1Depends on the battlemech. Most battlemechs tend to be around 8-10 meters tall, though different sources put stuff like Assault mechs at around 14 or so, or even larger. Honestly Battletech hates giving actual official sizes on their mechs that don't contradict themselves next publication, and usually all you get from them is their weight.
You mean Studio Nue with Macross and Sunrise with Dougram went with a scale around there, as part of launching the 'Real Robot' boom, the designs of which FASA licensed. In turn Studio Nue has semi-consistently been heavily involved in the design work for Armored Core, hence their biases carry forward. Licensing Japanese Work, doesn't mean it's a "western iteration." Battletech is Derivative Work in that regard.
What fascinates me is that the Ibis series we fought moves like Gundam with drone lasers and swords waves while having the same 10 meters height as us. I love it
Honesty this is exactly how big I thought they were. Good job on from conveying the size of the machines through the weight of animation and context clues.
As a fan of the series from the beginning, I thoroughly approve of the music used here. I am absolutely here for any Armored Core content you feel like making.
The fact those giant platforms they built on Rubicon 3 easily outclasses any existing buildings we have on Earth is both fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Like, you pilot your AC out of a facility which is already pretty big, only to see the sky being covered by those HUMONGUS structures, stretching endlessly into the distance... they know how to design an awesome game world!
I loved this video. As a Gundam model kit fan, I was amused and fascinated that you used the to-scale model kits to estimate a “real life” size. I also liked that you compared the size of the Armored Core to Gundams. I would watch more Armored Core size comparisons with Mecha from different series
I'm really enjoying this game and so far the way it handles lore is a lot nicer than the cryptic souls games. I feel like I understand all I need to. I will say though, I'm torn between the first decision missions in chapter 3 since I adore both sides!
Was anyone else hoping we'd get a sample of an AC model loaded into Elden Ring, or Vice Versa, with the model scales having AC's being the size of like a horse or something?
Wow, I always assumed AC's to be something like 100 feet tall! I'm actually glad that they are considerably smaller than that. It makes the game a bit more realistic and believable which in turn makes it more immersive!
I stood mine next to an apartment building, its head reached the 3rd floor, i then paused the game and went to look through the window, since i have the same soviet era apartment block next to my house i can now visualize how tall an AC is, about 10ish meters, now all that is left is for me to start getting some btches
10 meters feels to small. I just realized that the small drones early game that are supposed to teach you the multilock feature are actually attack helicopter. They do a lot with perspective in AC6 it's amazing.
I do like the idea that ACs come in different size categories based on the intended combat environment. One of the major difficulties of urban combat is that most armored vehicles are too large for the environment and suffer from bad visibility and maneuvering options as a result.
Zullie you are just the best, every video is interesting and I always leave with a smile looking forward to your next video. Thank you for always putting in the work to make these and share them with all of us.
Titanfall mechs are 6m ish. But i think its a good size as you can still render the world with great detail. When things get too large the world becomes a bit blocky as a result
It still blows me away a little, how huge the graphics leap for the series was between PS1 and PS2. Like, the series has always looked amazing for its time, but very few gives it the dues it deserves in that regard due to the gun-metal and dark esthetic the series tend to favour.
So the larger ACs and Battlemechs from Mechwarrior and Battletech are roughly the same height range. The shorter battlemechs being 8-9 meters tall going up to 14 meters on some of the larger assault mechs.
When I saw a car in VI I started to wonder this exact thing, thank you for making it into a video! Something about the sense of scale in this game was always hard to read I think so this helps to ground it somewhat.
Wow so I was on point. I've also seen that car in AC6 and thought, yeah maybe 10m tall. Interesting how the ACs were smaller in the fifth generation. Thanks Zullie for investigating and making all the sizes clear.
either the model is the official size, or they didn't really think about it. but if theres an official model with an official scale, it should be officially that size.
I feel like the mechs in AC6 are larger than 10m. There are not many relatable human size references in the game, a metal door or crate could be sized for a person, a vehicle, or a tank, but there are a few spots in the game where you come upon stairs, which pretty definitively set a human scale. Looking at these stairs, I would estimate the ACs to be closer to 50ft or 60ft, but I did not analyze them too granularly at the time since I was just having a blast playing the game. I always enjoy your videos. Thank you for your consistently fun and entertaining work.
ACs are not the smallest known mechs though, they're just a big larger than the Knightmare Frames from Code Geass, which averaged at about 4-5 meters in height.
I've always liked smaller mechas and I think the 10m ACs are perfectly sized, but over time I have gotten around to appreciate the bigger Gundams (building my own gunpla kits and preffering the 1/100 scale of MGs probably has something to do with this.)
By my estimation, my Melander is roughly 56ft in height, excluding shoulder weapons. I measured using the door (7~ft) on the control hutch for the elevator in Operation Wallclimber. So ACs are mobile suit-sized now. Edit: did a revisit for comparison. I was wrong. It's closer to 40ft tall, MLT-06s included, not 56 excluding shoulders. haDERP
some of the missions have shipping containers in them, which probably have a pretty consistent size irl for comparison but maybe there's a lot of different sized shipping containers idk but all the ones I've seen seem to be a standard size
It makes sense that ACs aren't these gundam sized monsters when you think about it. They aren't super powered god machines; they're high end military weapons platforms built to fight in conflicts where the basic infantry unit is the size of a small house. In that way, having them just be ten meters makes them a force to be reckon with.
the whole video i was thinking "oh so they are about as tall as Mobile Suits from Gundam." as the Cores looked to be about the size of an average building like a lot of general Mobile Suit sizes. but they are a little smaller than that. yet still bigger than Knigtmare Frames form Code Geass, which ended up being WAY smaller than i realized one i saw them in a crossover game where all the robots to scale form their respective series. for an example, the general size of Frames from Code Geass are around about half the size of a Zaku II.
A helicopter is about the size of a Normal's core (cutscene from Nexus). Meanwhile, for a NEXT, it's about the size of a rifle (cutscene from For Answer). For actual, in-game comparison though, between a Normal & a NEXT, see the final boss in the last mission of Armored Core Verdict Day. It's the same craft you pilot in AC4 & FA, albeit it not being a fully polished NEXT from its original generation. (It has to be plot armor because there is _NO WAY_ any machine outside of the 4th generation can stand a prayer against a NEXT, not even Nineball or it's Seraph version itself) This is why I applaud AC4 to ACVD; the amount of lore AC4 & FA provided to the entire franchise & how AC5 & VD complimented it.
Very happy that you are making videos about Armored Core, could you eventually make a video about AC pilots? Where are they, who are they, how they control the machine and how they are augmented?
I remember someone said that, the scalling issue in PS1 Armored Core is do to game engine or PS1 hardware limitation 🤔 10-12 meter is the average AC size (beside gen 5)
One thing that really threw me for a loop was the elevator in Operation Wallclimber, which has like a dozen floors of walkway and stairs (plus an entire 2-storey building) in a corner. The mechs don't feel that big when you're in the city areas so it just felt WRONG seeing the scale of the elevator.
Can't wait for someone to make a comparison video with Cores and mechs/robots from other franchises (particularly I'm interested in the comparison with the Titans from Titanfall)
I would like to see a continuation of this video, showing how the player compares to many of the bosses you see in the game. And how they would look like with a human for scale. There's absolutely some big behemoths in this one!
