I just killed the "Ice Worm," which is an odd mission in Armored Core VI that sees you using a prototype weapon to clear the gigantic mechanical monster (or, likely, biomechanical) of its powerful energy shield, which then sets it up to be taken down by a rail gun, and then you unload on it like it's no one's business.
The challenge of the mission is not really your typical one - yes, you have the usual challenges of dodging enemy attacks and pumping out damage when you can, but you spend most of the mission waiting for the opportunity to attack the Worm's face - you have to hit it straight on, which is very tough given that it only briefly shows its face and usually only when it's attempting to grind you into scrap metal.
While the game is still not quite what I'd call Dark Souls-level difficult, I have noticed an uptick in the difficulty of some missions - there's one that involves re-taking "The Wall," which you had previously done when fighting against the (probably good guys) Rubicon Liberation Front. Now, however, the PCA - the Planetary Closure Administration, which seems to have the weight of an actual major government behind it and thus actually manages to make the corporations look like scrappy underdogs - has taken it over. The mission has you facing off against a few not-terribly-scary MTs (minor mechs) and then a pair of tougher, faster, but not overwhelmingly so, ACs. Making your way into The Wall, you then have to fight a few minor enemies with some powerful attacks, and then face off against an elite PCA AC. The catch, though, is that there is not a single checkpoint in the level. Usually when you get to a boss, you can start over right before you fight them, probably with your AC redesigned to be a menace in single-target fights (one of the nastiest combinations is two miniguns and two Songbirds, the latter of which are basically artillery guns, which you deploy after you've overloaded the enemy with Strain using the miniguns and get bonus damage with, well, all your weapons once they're off-balance.)
This boss, on its own, would probably not rank terribly high, but it means that every flaw in executing the mission makes it that much harder for you to get past him and actually beat the mission. So, this guy is up there with Balteus and other major bosses for me in terms of difficulty.
I think one thing that gets the game to sort of click is when you get enough parts that you can make meaningful choices with the way you construct your AC. Early on, you only have a few options, so I highly recommend replaying some of those early missions to give you kind of, light weapons, medium weapons, heavy weapons, as well as shoulder weapons that are good for multi-lock and those that are good for single targets (and having some vertical-launch options is also good). There are some energy weapons (the ones that look like satellite dishes) that are good for cutting through shields (like the one on Balteus) but also, sometimes, massive damage is enough.
Hilariously, I did pick the absolute worst mission to try out the new light-weight tank "legs" I got, which involved a whole lot of jumping and fast-moving enemies, and where you basically spend most of the mission jumping down through ruined industrial infrastructure to kill a traitor to one of the questionable organizations you've fought/befriended.
The scale of the game is pretty massive, even if it's not some open world. Indeed, I saw a video from Zullie the Witch that showed that, because it uses the same game engine as FromSoft's Soulsborne games, you can actually put an Armored Core into Elden Ring, and yeah - they're really big.
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