Gamescom 2018 Famitsu Interview Summary & Notes

Well friends, Ace Combat 7 has a release date!

~woo~

It's January 17, 2019 for consoles, and February 1st for PC. This information comes at the end of a new trailer released at Gamescom in Köln. The public could play a new mission there, and the press could apparently play one mission more. But if you're reading this, I'm guessing you already knew that.

Anyway, a new show where AC7 makes an appearance means a new Famitsu interview with our man Kono. We'll summarize it for you as usual.

• Kono apologizes again for the wait and causing everyone to worry. He feels the pressure of everyone's expectations.
• He says that they're aiming for a scale and atmosphere somewhere between 04 and 5.
• The purpose of the trailer was to show off more story details while providing AC-like hooks with dialog and imagery.
• Famitsu observes that there sure are a lot of things it looks like you can fly through (tunnels, sea platforms, parts of Stonehenge). Kono replies that we have Masato Kanno to thank for that.
• Everyone knew this, but the plane at around 02:56 isn't a Falken. There'll be a lot of new planes in the game, which Kono says has kinda been a pain.
• The F-104 is playable to those who have confidence in their ability to fly around such an old aircraft.
• As you may have guessed, the reason two of the three euro-canards are in the demo is because Gamescom is in Europe.
• Kono does not elaborate on the parts system, even though he totally did to 4gamer.
• The demo missions are basically the same as they are in-game.
• They talk about clouds again, but didn't say anything new.
• Mission 6 was chosen for the demo because of its large scale.
• Kono says he's heard a lot of European media focusing on whether this game is more casual or more serious, which is interesting because I haven't heard any of that. There's also a lot of talk because flight action games are so rare nowadays.
• Kono says that even though AC clearly has a global audience, PA isn't making the game specifically with a global audience in mind, but rather just pursuing what they think would be compelling.

The rest of the article is a description of the gameplay demo. I'll skip over what they say about Mission 6 entirely, since there's nothing they say that you can't see for yourself in gameplay footage. However, they also talk about Mission 7 (First Contact). It's another "destroy a bunch of surface targets" mission like 6, but the Yinshi Ravine somewhat complicates things. The targets are in the ravine, and a layer of storm clouds makes them impossible to see from above. The way they describe it sounds to me almost like a Sky Odyssey level, which I'm sure is a helpful comparison to maybe four people.

Anyway, Famitsu guy pursued an enemy plane in to a rain cloud and had to really be on his toes to keep sight of the plane while also not running into something in low visibility conditions and unreliable instruments. They really like those clouds.

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One last note: there were two lines in the trailer which I and a few other people mis-parsed at first, but which can be clarified by referencing the Japanese subtitles.

• "That aircraft needs to be taken care of!" means "shoot down" and not "protect."
• "There are pilots like you in every generation, and I have felled every last one of them" means…well…"felled" and not "felt."

Weirdly, they both have to do with the same word:「墜とす」or "tsuitosu." It generally means to "take down" or "shoot down," and it was the word at the heart of both "felled" and "taken care of." I think in context both these lines would've been a lot more clear.
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We've gotten a lot of information over this game's multi-year press cycle, but I'm sure we're not done until 2019 either. We'll have those updates for you when they come around, whatever they might be.

(Hopefully it involves World News)

(Please let it involve World News)