The story of the upcoming Ace Combat 7: Skies Uknown appears to be all about the conflict between different perspectives belonging to the fictional countries Osea and Erusea.
During an interview at Gamescom, Producer Kazutoki Kono told DualShockers that the latest story trailers from E3 and Gamescom itself (which you can enjoy on their own at the bottom of the post) are two parts of the same story.
I didn’t think much of it at that moment, until I started watching them again to spend the time on the flight home. That’s when I noticed that, besides many repeated scenes, there were more that were remarkably similar.
That’s when I decided to play them side by side. Starting at the same time yields no results, but if you delay one by about ten seconds, you get something rather interesting, as you can see in the video below (it’s rendered in 4K, so remember to select the option if your monitor supports it, so that both trailers are in 1080p).
Starting with the scenes with the F-16 squadron taxiing on the runway, there are several moments in the trailers when exactly the same scene is played from a different perspective. In other parts of the trailers, contrasting scenes are displayed, like Erusean capital Farbanti in time of peace, and after the Osean attack, with its skyscrapers collapsing.
It’ll be certainly interesting to see how this will play during the story in game, but for now we can only speculate on what appears to be a narrative that might be able to rival with the best of the series.
Check out the video below, and if you want to see more, watch me playing a mission with the (rather atrocious) standard controls, and the same with the awesome expert controls. You can also watch Kono-san himself play another mission, and read my own hands-on preview.
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown releases in 2018 for PS4, Xbox One and PC.