Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is a cool mech game where you get to geek out on load limits, energy consumption, and spend hours testing out and equipping the best weapons for the job. But what if you didn’t want to worry about armaments, and just decided to face every enemy head on… punching them to death?
That’s the premise behind YouTuber ZeroLenny‘s latest video. ZeroLenny is known for their challenge runs, and their latest adventure is one where they attempt to see if they could beat Armored Core 6 without firing a single shot.
If you’re unfamiliar with how the game works, simply choosing not to equip any weapons defaults every attack to a standard, short-range punch. This is also what happens when you run out of ammo.
Right off the bat, ZeroLenny realises that the tutorial mission starts you with guns by default, before they figure out that the charge boost actually deals damage to enemies, which is basically another free punch.
Their first obstacle was the opening boss, AH12-HC – which is already difficult enough for normal players using the standard loadout. ZeroLenny even admits that it remains one of the game’s most difficult fights. Nevertheless, they persevered, relying entirely on charging into the helicopter.
Outside of the major bosses, and mini-bosses, standard enemies are actually fairly easy to take down without any firepower. For most enemies, their tactic relied on boosting into a melee hit, which deals around 168 damage (quite small), and consumes a lot of stamina.
The constant reliance on stamina is another problem ZeroLenny solved: by equipping the largest-capacity generator in the game. Later on, they add kicks and rely on their larger hitbox for damage. The full video, embedded above, is well worth a watch.