Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown was originally announced in late 2015 for the PlayStation 4, but publisher Bandai Namco revealed today that it's coming to the PC as well. The announcement was accompanied by a "New Years Showcase" trailer showing off some of the flying death machines that players will yank-and-bank through the dangerous skies of a place called... Strangereal. Man, what a career making up names of things for videogames must be.
Skies Unknown's arrival is a bit of a surprise, given that Ace Combat isn't what you'd call a PC gaming mainstay. The only other game in the series currently on Steam is Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, which based on the Steam user reviews isn't exactly a fan-favorite. How Ace Combat 7 will ultimately play is anybody's guess (although I suspect it won't be anything like this), but it certainly looks great. Watching this trailer just once had me ready to go looking for my Kenny Loggins Greatest Hits CD.
It's hard to tell exactly what story is being told here, but it appears to be a tale of intercontinental war in the air, spliced together with philosophical musings about the parallel conflict between man and machine. Will technology save us, as some believe, or will it simply distance us from our fellow humans, stripping away yet another layer of our humanity in the process? In the "era of the drone," who is the real master?
Or maybe it's just an excuse to whip sleek billion dollar planes across the sky. That's okay, too. Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is expected to be out later this year.
