Ace Combat 8 releases gameplay overview, announces October 8 release date

Taking to the skies in Ace Combat 8

As far as flight sims and flight action games go, Ace Combat is and has never aimed to be the most realistic, but it has succeeded over nearly a dozen different releases at being extremely entertaining!

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown was the highest grossing in the series selling over 7-million copies worldwide across multiple platforms. The series clearly still “has it” with its mix of fast paced, high speed, jet fighter action backed by impressive visuals and an incredible music soundtrack (Daredevil remains one of my favourite pieces of all time).

Bandi Namco has announced that the eighth entry into the series will be released worldwide on October 8 with an early access preview beginning on September 28. The series is touting 30 different combat aircraft, improved cloud and overall gameplay visuals, new enemies (aka the boss fight) like the land battleship, cinematics that help carry the story forward, and new online modes featuring cross play and co-op.

A short trailer has been put together showing off the usual mix of action and announcing the release date.

You can also watch the lengthier gameplay video with 10-minutes of gameplay and an overview of the kinds of things you’ll see as the game progresses. Ace Combat 8 looks to have a deeper aircraft customization system letting you make minor improvements across different categories of aircraft.

I’m not sure but I wonder if this is an effort to better balance the aircraft reducing the multiplayer “meta” collapsing into one or two community favourites that are clearly better than their counterparts and instead make players choose and customize to better suit their style of flying.

See for yourself with the gameplay trailer.