 So before we end the Armored Core series, I just wanted to cover what I believe to be one of the most misunderstood aspects of every Armored Core game. And major spoiler alert, I can't explain the deeper meaning of Armored Core without spoiling the endings. So if you haven't beat NG++, come back after you have. Okay. Now I believe Armored Core's story is actually one of the most beautiful and most important stories that a gamer can experience. Because this game was designed literally to help you grow as a person. To help the player realize what they were truly capable of when pushed to the limits. It's designed as a tool to help bring out and help develop your creativity, your strategy, your style, your grit and determination. And it does this in a way that very, very few games today do. In a way that empowers you the player in real life, not just in the game. And I think that's why the story for Armored Core has caused so much confusion. Some people say the story is bad, some people say it doesn't have a story. And the reason why I think the story is so hard for a lot of people to understand is because the story is not designed like a traditional game story. It's kind of hard to explain, but the best way that I can put it is in most games the player receives the story passively. They treat you more like a passenger in a movie. The writers just dump exposition on the player and assume that the player will eventually care if they keep watching it. Most writers expect the player to watch the story unfold from a distance. Most games actually have you experience the story more like a witness. But in Armored Core, you are the story. You are expected to be an active, driving force the story is built around. The game is not about a character named 621 who saves Rubicon. The game is about you saving Rubicon. 621 is a nickname for you. The same way G13 is a nickname for you and Raven and Freelancer and Buddy and Tourist. The game goes out of its way to make sure that you know these are all just nicknames for you the player. You see, 621 is not the main character. You are the main character. Armored Core is one of the few games left where the developers do not want the player to experience the story that they've written. It's a game where the player is meant to be the experience. This is not like Halo or Zelda where the player experiences the story from Master Chief or Link's perspective. You are experiencing it from your perspective. It's a story how you, a random nobody, in a world where ideals are fantasies and dreams are dead start at the very bottom with no skills, having your ass handed to you by everybody. But because you don't give up, you grow, you adapt, you make allies, find friends, find meaning, find purpose, and eventually the freedom to make your own choice and become the dominant force on a planet where people respect and truly appreciate you and want to work together with you in the future. That's the story, how you did all that. And it's not because you're the descendant of some great king. You don't have the Ninetales power secretly inside of you. You weren't born with overpowered amounts of chakra or reyatsu. You had no plot armor. You know that. You were always one step away from being wiped off the planet. And you know that the only reason you got to the end was because you became a stronger person than you were when you started the game. You became hard to kill. You learned to adapt, to grow, to strategize, to optimize, to not be afraid of the unknown, and to face it head on against the odds. And to have the confidence that whatever this crazy world throws at you, you will find a way to beat it, because that's what you do. That's who you are. And that's what the story is really about. The real story of Armored Core is literally about helping you grow as a person in real life. The old you got mopped by a f***ing helicopter, but you now eat helicopters every Tuesday. And that's just because you're a more capable person now than you were in the beginning. See something that players often forget is that every piece of a video game is a conversation between the developer and the player. The developers are trying to tell you something through the experience of their game. Every sound, every effect, every piece of dialogue is something the developer wants to communicate to the player. And the story the developer is trying to tell the player is explicitly stated in this game. At the end, when you beat it for the first time, you'll get this message. The second time you beat the game, you will get this message. You took on my hopes. My selfish dream. I want to see the future that you choose. Whatever waits ahead, I'll support you. Now I want you to listen to the messages that the players would get at the end of older Armored Core games. The one living Raven, which one of us was ultimately right, you have the right, the duty to find that out. What is it that you wish? We're not sure what it is you hope to accomplish and possibly be gained by upsetting the current order. I guess it doesn't matter anymore. Go. Let's find out what kind of future will be born from your decision. This is the true story of Armored Core. This is the true intentions the developers have for the player. The point of the game is to help the player realize their true potential to help them grow and learn to be the kind of person that can adapt to whatever the world decides to throw at you. The developer is not trying to lecture you or tell you what to do. After you've become the badass you didn't know you were, what you do is up to you. The devs just want to see you reach your full potential. And what you do with that potential is your choice. And they truly support you on that journey. And I just want to say, especially in today's age, just what a truly beautiful message that is. And just how important I think those words are for so many people right now. I can tell you when I was 10 years old and I played Armored Core for the first time as a kid, I was a different person after the game was over. I used to be a quiet kid who was afraid of everything. I had no confidence in any of my abilities, but my dad got me this game for my birthday. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I instantly fell in love with it. And by the end of the game, I had learned to face challenges. I knew big words I didn't know before, like capacity and energy supply, projectile velocity, intercept and trajectory. I understood the concept of tradeoffs and how to balance my money. I learned how to identify objectives, how to plan, how to strategize and how to prepare to achieve those objectives and practice in order to have the skills necessary to execute them. I had experienced betrayal, friendship, hardship and overwhelming odds. And somehow I got through it all and made it to the end. And when the game was finally over, it became my benchmark for the level of difficulty that I knew I could handle in real life. I know it sounds kind of stupid. But whenever I encountered a new problem in real life that I didn't know how to do, something like learning to replace a flat tire. I would ask myself, OK, is learning to replace a flat tire more difficult than learning Armored Core? And most of the time, the answer was no. And then I'd just tell myself, OK, man, no excuses. You know you can do this. Just figure it out like you always do. And as it turns out, replacing a flat tire really wasn't that bad after all, just like the first boss really wasn't that bad after all. If you just have the courage to just go for something the first time, once you get the hang of it, it's really not that bad. And it turns out most things in life are exactly like that. And that's actually the reason that I had the confidence to try and learn new things like game design, like Blender, like Maya, like ZBrush, like Unreal or Unity. But it's OK if you don't know how to do something because I knew the process to figure it out. It was just another mission. Identify the objective, gather information, strategize, execute, then go over the results to find improvements. These are all things I learned as a kid from the old games. And these are all skills that I think really help you navigate life in general. I don't know many other developers out there that have such a selfless and pure positive message for their players, like from software does in Armored Core. And I think that's the main reason the story is so misunderstood. You see, it's not a story about Rubicon. It's a story about your journey to grow into a stronger person than you were before you picked up the game. That's always been the theme of Armored Core. So if you're new to the game, hopefully that shed some light onto how the game is designed. Thank you so much for watching. And as always, hope you have a fantastic day.