It’s been almost 12 years since Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation, but come January 2019 Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown will bring players back to Strangereal at the start of a new war between the Kingdom of Erusea and Osean Federation. As Mage 2 (aka Trigger) in the IUN peacekeeping forces, it will be your job to counterattack after the Erusean opening airstrikes routed Osean forces on the Usean Continent. To make matters worse, Erusean Drone Fighters have stuck all major Osean military bases in Osea itself and have seized the International Space Elevator. Bandai Namco was kind enough to allow us to have some hands-on time with Ace Combat 7, but even with the three missions available to play, the story is still largely under wraps until launch day.

Newcomers to the franchise should note that Ace Combat isn’t a pure combat flight simulator game. While the planes are largely based off their real world counterparts, their heavy missile payloads would be unthinkable on a real aircraft. As such, the name of the game is to manage your missiles to achieve the desired number of kills along with using your flares to save yourself as your F-16 will only take one or two hits. The missions will not advance until you take out the main targets, but in between, you are free to try and shoot down as many or as little of the enemy as you wish. It sounds simple at first, but for newcomers, there will be a bit of a learning curve. The first mission only has you shooting down bombers and fighting off escorts at high altitude. From there you quickly learn how flying low can be tricky and you will have to learn how to dodge missiles quickly when dogfights intensify. For long time Ace Combat veterans there have been a few notable changes since the days of Ace Combat 6.

Fans of warning lights can rejoice, for incoming missiles will no longer just show on your mini map but will have a warning light to indicate the direction of hostile missiles, so you can better plot evasive maneuvers. Clouds provide greater cover against missile tracking, but how much air currents actually affect aircraft is hard to tell with what time we had. The loadouts consist of missiles, special weapons, cannons, and countermeasures. Cannons have unlimited ammo this time around. All planes will have upgrade slots with universal upgrades being unlocked as you buy aircraft across the aircraft tree. Each aircraft will have three special weapon options, but whether each plane will have a unique weapon remains to be seen. The starter aircraft for Ace Combat 7 is the humble General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16C, with the Mitsubishi F-2A, Grumman F-14D, and Mikoyan MIG-29A being your initial upgrade offerings.

For the first time, pilot portraits will be seen with some of the radio chatter to add some cinematic flair to the missions. They seem to be limited to your squadron mates. The trailers had hinted that penal units will be part of the story, and the narrator for the proceedings is an imprisoned F-104 pilot/engineer. Drone planes will form a core part of the mission enemies as well as the narrative. Multiplayer modes confirmed so far are Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch with the lobby being able to handle at least 8 players. There will be missions exclusive to PlayStation VR, but it isn’t necessary to fully enjoy the game.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown will be coming to PS4 and XBox One on 1/18/19 and to Windows on 2/1/19.