Have fun: https://github.com/khasinski/rage-racer-pc

Let’s be honest for a minute and look at this franchise without the rose-tinted glasses of its 2019 revival.

When Ace Combat: Assault Horizon flopped in 2011 by trying to force "Dogfight Mode" and QTEs onto us, the franchise was effectively put on life support. We were starved for a classic Strangereal game. When Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown finally dropped, most of us were just relieved the series wasn't dead.

But now that the hype has settled, it's time to admit it: Mechanically and structurally, AC7 is deeply sterile compared to the PS2/Xbox 360 era.

The Regression of Gameplay & AI

Think about the mechanical progression we had from 2001 to 2007:

• AC04 gave us complete operational freedom across massive sectors.
• AC5 gave us actual squadron control with direct D-Pad commands and aircraft variant leveling.
• AC Zero gave us the Ace Style Gauge (Mercenary/Soldier/Knight), dynamic rival encounters, and the most aggressive, tactical dogfighting AI in the series.
• AC6 gave us a living warzone with massive Allied Support systems, High-G turn management, and operations where your allies actually fought alongside you.

Then came AC7, and almost ALL of that was stripped away.

In AC7, friendly AI is effectively non-existent. You can watch Count, Jaeger, or Tabloid tailgate an enemy MiG for 10 straight minutes firing dozens of "phantom" missiles that do zero damage. Project Aces intentionally neutered friendly AI so Trigger could be the sole hero, but it completely shattered the illusion of being part of a larger war. Instead of wingmen commands or dynamic battlefields, our "new mechanics" were volumetric clouds, icing, and fighting hyper-maneuverable drone bosses that break the laws of physics.

Milking Nostalgia & The 3-Mission DLC Hole

Rather than fixing the core mechanical holes in the base game—like adding true squadron commands, branching paths, or meaningful allied AI—Namco decided to heavily milk nostalgia:

1. Endless Reskin & Nostalgia DLCs: We were flooded with countless plane packs, ADF-series re-releases, and classic skin packs to keep us paying.
2. A 3-Mission DLC Band-Aid: The Season Pass gave us a brief 3-mission DLC campaign (SP Missions 1-3). While the Alicorn arc had great boss fights and soundtrack, 3 missions didn't magically fix the fact that the base 20-mission campaign felt linear, mechanically stripped, and narrative-heavy without the player agency we had in Zero or 6.

What Ace Combat 8 MUST Do to Succeed

Ace Combat 7 saved the franchise commercially, and we love it for keeping Strangereal alive. But it was a safe reboot built under extreme budget constraints and engine resets. Ace Combat 8 doesn't have those excuses anymore.

If AC8 wants to actually compete with the Holy Trinity and AC6, Project Aces needs to stop relying on nostalgia and bring back real depth:

• 🟢 Bring back functional Wingmen/Allied AI: If I give an attack order, I want my squad to actually kill targets like in AC5 and AC6.
• 🟢 Dynamic Battlefields over Scripted Drones: Stop forcing us into scripted, physics-defying UAV dogfights every third mission. Give us large-scale, dynamic operations with multiple objectives.
• 🟢 Re-introduce Campaign Depth: Bring back branching campaign paths (AC3), Ace Style routing (AC Zero), or dynamic sectors (AC6).

How do you guys feel about AC7 in hindsight? Was it a masterclass in reviving a dead series, or did it strip away too much of what made the Golden Era so deep? What’s your main non-negotiable feature for AC8? Why was Project Wingman, a game that started with a simple kick-starter and was mostly developed by a single person, a huge success, proving to Bandai Namco that the community didn't just want fancy graphics and drone bosses—they wanted huge loadouts, massive warzones, and deep replayability, standing as a love letter to the "Golden Era" of Ace Combat that forced AAA developers to rethink what flight-sim fans actually care about?

Edit: the bootlickers are actually going apeshit over a well-structured text, but I do hope the fan-base isn't as retarded as the common daily redditors around here.