"Armored Core 6" is no small side project for From Software. However, with no director at the helm of the famed studio, Eitaka Miyazaki, and a major DLC in the works called Elden Ring, it is not very clear how From Software is allocating its time and resources. When I recently interviewed the director and producer of "Armored Core 6," I asked him about the size of the studio and how the team is divided.

"I don't expect players to read the entire staff list at the end of the game and compare who's who," producer Yasunori Ogura joked. To give you a rough idea, FromSoftware has about 400 employees, of which about 300 are development staff. That development staff moves between projects as needed, depending on the status of the project and the current development period"

. [His earliest credit at Mobygames is "Abyss" in 2003, when he joined Mobygames as a promotional staff member for "Shadow Tower: Abyss": his first in gaming was in 2003 as a promotional staff member for "Shadow Tower: Abyss," and since then he has worked on " He has been involved in the PR and marketing of more than 20 From games up to "The Elden Ring". Armored Core 6" is Ogura's first produced game, and Ogura explains that many staff members are behind the game, at least compared to past "Armored Core" games.

"At its peak, 'Armored Core 6' had between 200 and 230 developers involved. This was also true for Eldenring. At the peak of that project, we had a similar number of staff working on it at the same time. So the staff moved around fluidly as needed."

For comparison's sake, when "Armored Core 5" was released in 2012, there were only about 80 in-house development staff. Ten years later, about 200 developers seems like a pretty realistic growth. What is even more shocking is that a game of the size of "The Elden Ring" was made by a team of the same size.

Ubisoft recently announced that "Assassin's Creed" had about 2,000 developers working on it and plans to increase that number to 2,800; even Larian Studios, the developer of "Baldur's Gate 3," recently surpassed From Software overtook From Software and hired 400 employees to fulfill its new RPG ambitions. From Software's development team is unusually small considering the size of the games it produces.

With only a month to go until the release of Armored Core 6, most of the developers who were on the team at its peak have likely moved on to Shadow of the Elden Tree, an expansion to The Elden Ring, or something entirely new.