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Ace Combat 8: Wings Of Theve - Announcement Trailer
(youtube.com)
You're a fighter pilot, adrift at sea in a rescue boat until the outdated aircraft carrier, Endurance, pulls you aboard. Your homeland's navy is shattered. The aging vessel, its decks crowded with refugees, has already retreated far from the front lines.
July 2029: The Federation of Central Usea (FCU) has fallen under a lightning invasion by the Republic of Sotoa. Most of the nation is occupied, the military is scattered, and the Endurance is just one fragment of what remains. On this shop, you're given a single name: "Wings of Theve". A legendary ace, a symbol of hope, a name tied to Theve, the FCU capital.
But that legend was a lie; it was a story made to keep morale alive. Now, you must carry that name and take to the skies again. With three new comrades at your side, fight to reclaim your lost homeland.
From here. So the premise is that your country made a Ghost of Kiev and you have to pretend to be them, lol. Funny premise. AC7 was great so this could be GOTY 2026 for me
Ukraine actually did that too, they have a real MiG-29 squadron called the Ghosts of Kyiv now lol.
But I like the set up, reminds me of Ace Combat X Skies of Deception, the PSP one.
Sotoa is supposed to be some failed petrostate (ran out of oil) that borders the in universe version Iraq and Lebanon, so that's an interesting antagonist.
From interviews coming out from project aces, Sotoa is basically Iran, with an inland sea (Caspian), near Yuktobania (Russia) and Middle Eastern states as previously mentioned, and in game the culture is based on the Parthians.
I hope we get Chinese jets too.
oh god I hope the recent tensions between Japan and China don't see anything Chinese cut from the game
I'm fine with missing out on the Chinese jets that are visually similar to their Soviet/Russian Flanker counterparts, but it's time that we get at least a J-20, hopefully a J-35 too.
Can we stop having a war on the continent of Usea for 5 minutes?!
AC7 was great
The game that chickened out of doing a full blown Osea bad plotline (in universe, Osea is the stand in for the USA), and completely dropped it halfway through the game to do a "ehhh, it was Belka's fault yet again" is good. Okay.
I'm not really going into Ace Combat expecting anything out of the story. Like I won't complain if it's good but I'm not gonna be that disappointed if it's mid like I would be for an RPG. The gameplay was great and that's what I'm there for.
Ace Combat always struck me as mecha anime where the mechs are replaced with fighter jets.
It reminds me of Metal Gear in some ways, but with planes.
If we got an Ace Combat game co-directed by Hideo Kojima, that would be wild.
The last game outright referenced Macross Plus.
back in my day it was called Air Combat and it was on the original playstation
Back in my day, they absolutely butchered part 3 to make it fit on one disc 
The PS1 and PS2 days feel so long ago. My parents won a PS1 in a raffle, and we had it around the house to play some games when I was a very young kid, but they had to sell it eventually. That was what, almost 30 years ago now? Time flies. I still remember the controllers with no analogue sticks.
Hell yeah!
I think Zero is still probably the best game lore wise. There's also a lot of references to WW2 in there, look up the dates of the missions in Zero and contrast that with the dates of key events in WW2, you'll see what I mean.
spoiler
Belka, the in game stand in for Nazi Germany, nukes itself on D-day, for example, 6 June. To prevent the heartland of Belka from being invaded.
The war-crime-o-meter was an interesting game mechanic as well
I played a ton of 4, 5, and Zero. The plot and storytelling of 4 were very cool, and 5 is a fun and believable political melodrama of presidents under the control of an ultra hawkish illuminati.
Zero had great mechanics tho, I think the best gameplay in the series was on the PS2 and Zero was the pinnacle of that.
Didn't realize how much I miss having a PS2 
I understand that Germany starting WW3 4 times in a row was getting a bit stale but Iran destroying USEA is kinda on the nose lmao.
There's a lot of Top Gun Maverick style references in there too. The helmets with the callsigns, F-18 protagonist aircraft, fighting against in game Iran which has Su-57s. I just hope it's good and not assault horizon 2.0 story wise.
melodramatic super unrealistic Ace Combat game
Redundant statement tbh 
7 kind of sucked, hopefully this'll be closer to my favorites (4 and 5).
Are we ever getting to play 6 outside of Xbox platforms? 
Imho, 6 is worse than 7, but in a funny bad way rather than a massively frustratingly bad way.
Maybe, haven't played 6 since it was new.
Yeah I hope the story is more coherent. AC6 style gameplay would be nice.
Is the person in the thumbnail pushing the plane into the sea?
That's hella accurate!
If they can nail the melodramatic almost soap opera ridiculousness of Ace Combat 5 with the cutscences coupled with actually competent squad commands that are more than "hey maybe you should attack what's in front of me rather than behind me" it'll be a lot of fun.
Squad commands in Ace Combat Zero worked because Pixy was a competent wingman that would listen to them and you could set him to attack only air or only ground targets of you wanted, Ace Combat 5 squad commands were a crapshoot and useless at times. But it does look like squad commands are back. The cutscenes remind me a lot of Assault Horizon, apparently the same design lead that made those is making them for Ace Combat 8, which explains the first person view and free look camera. That makes me a bit worried to be honest. But the problems with Assault Horizon were not the cutscenes itself, but the generic real world story. It also looks as if you can equip your aircraft with two "special weapons" at the same time, so that's interesting.
Already? That was fast.
AC7 was like six years ago
Shit, already? I swear I just played it when it came out... time flies
Ace combat 7 announcement trailer was 10 years ago, and released in 2019. It's actually been a while.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2025
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