IN.

New trailer up. Shows the Steam logo at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpgwu-xpG5w

Way too arcadey for my tastes but I could definitely see younger gamers (ie teenagers) being interested in it.

Oh, I'm just seeing this as a very entertaining way to get some over the top story and combat missions like the old sims used to do. I will definitively buy.

And sadly, I doubt there would be any new interesting offerings for proper modern combat flight simulators in the near future.

Far from a teenager, but if it has the various options for approaching the missions, I'll likely have more fun than any sim I've played.
A-10 ftw!

I guess you aren't a fan of DCS World or the Battle of Stalingrad/Battle of Moscow series? There are plenty of new plans for those two franchises.

I did say interesting...

...and also said new....as in a sim in an actual military scenario with historic missions and a pilot career. with interesting aircraft. The perfect sims for me were the Jane's Longbow sims. That is my standard. Falcon BMS is almost there, but I still liked Longbow better.

Not giving one more cent to DCS, and my heart belongs with the turbines and Mach speeds of modern day aircraft.


There is nothing bad about a fictitious, over the top, arcadey sim if you approach it the same way you approach medieval fantasy, sword and shield, fight-the-dragon RPG.

I wish they would renovate the weapons systems, which I've explained here a while back. But I'm happy we're getting a proper Ace Combat. I'll take a modern version with updated graphics. The last two entries were crap and attempts to bring make the game viable for the general public (westernized, MMO). After those two attempts more or less flopped we were almost sure the game would be axed. I think VR saved it. Just having a gimmicky VR mode made it viable for Sony to use as marketing, and therefore got enough support from Bandai-Namco to keep it afloat. In an age where everything is becoming some generic open world action adventure shooter that takes place on foot, I am so glad Ace Combat has managed to survive. Even if you don't like flight games, it is really the only vehicle based game outside of the racing genre to come out with a campaign.

Bit of a fan theory I came across, which I believe may end up being true:

I would definitely buy this. Those visuals alone and aircraft modeling are a joy to look at and as long as they allow a certain amount of freedom with take offs and landings and maybe options to turn off crazy future tech HUD elements I'm happy. The volumetric cloud rendering looks outstanding. I would love if they added a free flight mode that allows you to take off and land and fly around the map. There was a pretty cool PS2 game back in the day that actually was probably the best true combat flight simulator that I've ever seen on a console. I forget what it was called but it had some sort of academy training section that you had to work your way through to get to the campaign and it was things like fly this cessna from point A to point B and land. Fly your first mission in a jet, go here and perform this maneuver and then go here do this and then come back and land.

I don't like this word or using it but those hangar screen menus in the video were sexy looking. I love being able to pan around and view the game model and the lighting is just something else. I think I'd spend the night in that hangar in my sleeping bag on the hard concrete gazing upon the Tomcat in that mesmerizing blue light.

The older games have a free flight mode, so I expect this one to. Assuming this game is like the previous games then the landing / take off sequences are separate tiny maps. Either at the start or end of certain missions, and some games had a return line mid mission were you could land and take off. Fairly boring due to how simple the game is and how small the maps are. The fun is always in the combat and cinematics of it.

Played some free flight in AC4 a few nights back just to view the craters:


And my DCS version:


It will be interesting to see what looks better, Ace Combat 7 or DCS from certain angles. Currently I can claim that the highest quality version of this scheme is the one I did for DCS, but maybe Ace Combat 7 will take that throne?

Coot, I bet that was Energy Air Force. The unofficial sequel, Over G Fighters, was a light sim on the 360 that was pretty amazing...other than the mission presentations. Very realistic missions, load outs, flight etc. I've got some video captures on my YouTube channel of some missions. Had a great MP mode with a map so huge it could take almost 10 minutes to fly an A-10 to the nearest enemy base for bombing.

It may be hard to beat visuals in AC if they make it like AC6. They had a relationship with Geo-eye so they used satellite imagery for landscapes and major cities. That game was friggin gorgeous, and still holds up today. Only held back by the lack of AA on the console.

I remember walking into a Comp USA and they were demoing AC4 I think on the Playstation 2 and I was blown away with how it looked. Even after all of the great sims in the 90s I played this one had a look about it that seemed pretty uncommon to me and looked almost photorealistic. I think it also helped that it had all those fun cinematic camera angles and camera views that are detached from the external aircraft kind of like in Flamming Cliffs where the camera just floats about. They kind of have a Metal Gear Solid feel to them with the cinematic and kind of crazy, soap opera story lines which I kind of like because they are in that regard a little more akin to the great simming age where the games weren't just stale and hard cold study sims but actually had color and life and a story and pre and post creative menus and briefings.


Thanks for the lead RK. When I checked out Energy Air Force I thought that was it but then I poked around some more and the one I had is actually called "Aero Elite: Combat Academy." A really nice, truly sim style flight game for PS2. I wish I would have kept it. One thing I do remember is that it was hard as all get out. Controls were tough and little to no room for error. But the graphics are good for PS2, looks like volumetric clouds, nice aircraft physics and animations, 3D cockpit, take offs, landing, airbase and carrier ops and so on. I think the training missions all take place on an island and the game also had mission recording which is awesome.



This is also bringing back other memories. There's a Sega Genesis game I used to play all the time when I'd get home from school probably in '94-'95 called "F-117 Night Storm." Oh I loved that! I used to get so sucked into that and it was a really cool Sega Genesis game and probably the first sim-like flight game I ever played on a console platform. There was a Stealth Fighter game on the NES that I loved but it was very much arcade. Night Storm was actually a 3D rendered game on Sega and it had external views which was cool as well as hiding from enemy radar signals. We didn't really have a good computer in the household yet and having been blown away with Strike Commander at my cousin's house I needed something too!

AC6 and Over G had cinematic replays with various camera angles. More games need that.

The FOV looks awful in Ace Combat 7. I've never played any of the games but dear heavens, it seems as if they only give you 60 degrees which is stomach wrenching. In Falcon, I'm always zoomed out as far as I can go to see as wide as I can.

I think this is PS4 Pro footage. Hoping for better graphics options on the PC version.

That is how all previous Ace Combats were. Maybe PC will have larger FOV in the cockpits, but I would not count on it. Most people play in the chase view, as I do. The fake HUD elements don't fit the real HUDs anyways, which is always a problem with arcadey games and why I always play with the chase view. I do switch to the cockpit every now and then, but mostly I prefer looking at the beautifully rendered plane models and nice color schemes.

Cockpit all the way for me. Just look around, it isn't a fixed view. PC gamers tend to want too much FOV, turning it into an out of body, walleye-vision experience. Just look around.

I've enjoyed quite a few past AC titles for their arcade action and fun gameplay, looks like this one will be good fun too. AC titles are always a good break from the hardcore sims out there IMO.