Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (PS4, 2019)
Despite being an long-running, popular and generally well regarded series, I had never heard of Ace Combat until the free to play instalment of Infinity was released in 2014. I ended up playing it a few years later still with no knowledge of the series. I loved it. There was a brief single player mode but the main focus was multiplayer co-op missions which all involved destroying an assortment of targets to achieve an objective. I enjoyed it so much I started paying attention to the development of Ace Combat 7, although not enough attention to realise it wouldn't have an online mode anything like Infinity.
Since this game carries at 7 at the end of its name, you might imagine there's 6 games' worth of story preceding it. You'd be wrong, because Ace Combat Zero is in there somewhere too. It's no matter though, because Skies Unknown is a new story and after finishing the game from beginning to end at least six times I'm still not entirely sure I understand it. The game world exists in an alternative version of Earth called 'Strangereal,' with the same things you'd expect on Earth - some continents, lots of people, and a seemingly endless desire to spend lots of money on wars.
Most of that money is spent on aircraft. Judging by the amount of aircraft you shoot down and the amount of missiles your planes can carry, this world must bankrupt itself on a weekly basis. At the start of each mission you pick a plane, its parts and weapon, then you go up and carry out the mission. Planes and parts are unlocked from the Aircraft Tree, you earn money to buy them from doing missions and playing online. Most of the planes are real, but there are some concepts you can unlock once you get far enough and there's lots of DLC if you really like the game. This all works fine. Honestly, I've played the game so much I can't really describe details like this objectively anymore, they're just so commonplace to me I'm struggling with detailing how it all works.
Since this is Ace Combat 7 there's a lot of information from previous games that's just sort of assumed knowledge not only on behalf of the player, but the game world itself. Locations and characters are included which I only tangentially recognise from my time with Infinity, and even when I've played the game several times there's still a lingering sense of familiarity which I don't quite get. It's not helped by the way the game's story is actually presented. There are cutscenes between missions which tie together different characters and their narrative threads, but none of these are brought up in missions. Missions themselves feature the other pilots talking over the radio and there's personality there if you look hard enough, but it's quite a strange way of story-telling to try and get used to.
The missions themselves don't help with this as there seems to be very little relation to anything in the world that you're told about. You're shown maps of Strangereal and told you're fighting here in order to do this, you go up and... you shoot at planes. Or you shoot at ground targets. The war's raging, then the war ends. You did that. Perhaps there's a contemporary social commentary about how detached aerial warfare is in here. Destroying dozens of targets you can't see or properly understand starts, perpetuates and ends a war, against an enemy you never see. Again, it takes the several playthroughs I've managed to actually feel as if what you're doing has any impact or significance, but thankfully, it does. I suppose it feels like a game and a story which actively rewards both repeated plays and the player really trying to engage with everything they're experience.
I'm not really sure how to describe the experience of playing the story without just recanting all of it as it happened. I realise too that my previous paragraph doesn't really sound like a positive reaction. I don't know how to explain how that format can produce numerous characters, situations and personalities that are completely unique and memorable, but it does. Since playing Skies Unknown I did some digging online into the fan community and this helped me realise how good the story and characters were. Missions where you're fighting against an old man with twelve names who's in a plane with a railgun on it and he's bragging about how "there have been pilots like you in every generation, and I've felled every last one," how stupid does that sound? And yet, how cool is it? Don't forget the DLC where the commander of a submarine that sat at the bottom of the ocean for two years surfaces and wants to end the war by destroying the countries that are actually fighting.
The game looks and sounds amazing throughout. A lot of the detail in close quarters fighting can be lost given the speeds you're moving at, but when you get close up flashes of hitting a target with a missile it feels all the more real and impressive for it. For once, saying the sky looks good in a game is actually a legitimate compliment. Flying in and around clouds is a genuinely immersive experience, and I think this graphical realism helps you forget you're in a plane that's carrying 150 missiles. Music has always been a big part of the Ace Combat series too and here it's... well, there are extended 30 minute versions of each mission's soundtrack on YouTube and I'm pretty sure I've listened to them all. Several times. If you think you've watched or played something with an epic orchestral score adding to the sense of occasion, you've not played this. I would have liked a photo mode, or more in-depth controls with the post-mission replays, to show this off a bit better, but this doesn't detract from the experience as it's happening.
Reading back what I've written so far, I think I've undersold the story a bit. Although the characters and setting can feel confusing at times there's a consistent underlying sentiment to the story which I think has become more relevant in the years since the game's release. Whichever one of Osea, Usea or Erusea it is you're fighting against have been developing automated drones to do their fighting. They've been gathering information from a top pilot and putting that into these small drones which are launched from containers or from the massive Arsenal Bird aircraft which occasionally show up in missions. Nobody likes this. All the characters repeat how bad drones are, how planes are meant to be flown by humans.
In a lot of the online discourse and reviews for this game (I'd recommend 'An Incorrect Summary of Ace Combat 7' on YouTube much more than anything I've written) the Arsenal Birds and the AI drones are jokingly compared to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, but I think there's a legitimate comparison to be made. Consider how much the world has changed since early 2019. Consider how dependent you probably are on technology. All of that's only going one way. Maybe I'm cynical, maybe I'm scared, but I have enjoyed my time with a game which champions human individuality and capability over mechanical, automated, technological output.
Thinking about it, I suppose Ace Combat games are quite the unique niche. How many games are there about aerial warfare? Tom Clancy tried it and failed. Project Wingman exists but from what I gather the missions are quite repetitive, although it's a first time effort from its creators so you can give them some leeway. Skies Unknown is the sort of game that lots of people would say they want to play. It looks great. The gameplay is challenging enough to feel properly rewarding when you master it. The music, dialogue and characterisation all combine to make everything you do feel genuinely epic and important. You can play the full campaign as many times as you like and never really get tired of it, and if you do that while trying different planes and loadouts you'll discover some new details that make you appreciate it all even more.
The best praise I can finish on is that I'm invested enough in this as a concept now to actually consider buying Ace Combat 8 as soon as it releases. It's fantastic. Give it a try if you can.
