The articlegameplay, story, development, reception
Gameplay
The mechanics of Armored Core: Nexus continues with many of the franchise's conventions. Players pilot large mech robots called Armored Cores and are hired as mercenaries for objective-based missions. Armored Cores are highly modular and can be customized with hundreds of parts and items. Money is earned through missions and can be used to purchase customization options, but any expenses incurred through a mission are automatically deducted from the player's income.
Mouse support allows for players to create emblems and navigate menus. The control scheme of Nexus has been updated to include support for dual analog sticks, a first for the franchise.
Story
55 years after the incident at the Silent Line, corporate warfare is on the verge of breaking out once more between the four largest corporations: Mirage, Crest, Kisaragi, and the newly founded Navis. An ill-equipped bureaucracy called the Organization for Administrating Enterprise claims to police the corporations, but does little in practice to stop the escalation of conflict between them. Global Cortex, the organization that employed Armored Core pilots called Ravens, has been replaced with a successor organization called Raven's Ark.
As the corporations expand across the planet, Navis begins to hoard ancient technology and gains the attention of Mirage, which leads to an attempt by Mirage to use the OAE to force Navis into sharing the technology. Navis instead withdraws from the OAE and severs its partnership with Kisaragi to develop a secret alliance with Crest. Tensions from these events lead to all-out war between the corporations, which comes to a climax as Crest betrays their smaller ally and destroys the city that Navis is based in. Despite Crest withdrawing from the war, Mirage begins to attack Navis, leading the desperate company to activate an ancient weapon that proves to be uncontrollable. Despite the player's defeat of the weapon, the Kisaragi corporation accidentally activated a separate weapons system that begins to destroy everything it can.
Reception
The game received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of two eights, one nine, and one seven for a total of 32 out of 40.
The addition of dual analog stick support was welcomed by reviewers, with Game Informer's Matt Miller calling it "long-needed". Customization was praised as being "easier than before" by GamePro and the game's "real selling point" by IGN.
