Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – highway to the no danger of nausea zone
The PlayStation VR headset was our favourite new hardware of 2016, but as is becoming increasingly obvious there’s worryingly few big-name VR games lined up for 2017. Apart from Sony’s sci-fi shooter Farpoint almost everything else is indie games. Which is just one of the reasons we were so excited to play Bandai Namco’s Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown.
Believe it or not the Ace Combat series is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, but unlike most flight sims the only time it’s ever been released on the PC is via the divisive Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. The 2011 spin-off was clearly aimed at the Call Of Duty crowd rather than existing fans. It wasn’t a bad game, and it sold okay, but Ace Combat 7 is an attempt to show the difference between it and a full-blooded numbered sequel.
You can see what producer Kazutoki Kono thinks that difference means in the e-mail interview below, but basically it boils down to a mix of real-world and sci-fi aircraft and a story set in the series’ long-established fictional universe. As well as presumably removing Assault Horizon’s on-rails elements.
We didn’t get to see any of that though, as the demo we played was of a VR mission. As Kono explains, you can’t play the whole of Ace Combat 7 in VR but it does contain a number of special missions that are designed specifically for PlayStation VR. (The fact that an Xbox One version of the game has been announced has led some to imagine it as tacit confirmation that the Xbox is also getting a VR headset. But since the main campaign does not support VR that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.)
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Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – next gen After Burner
The VR demo was brief, but at least as impressive as the Star Wars: Battlefront one. More so from a technical perspective, because despite throwing our jet fighter around the skies like a cocktail shaker in the hands of Tom Cruise himself we didn’t feel the slightest bit of nausea. And yet we couldn’t detect the game holding back in any way, since it has a faster turn speed than Battlefront and doesn’t restrict the view during tight turns. Whatever VR wizardry Kono and his team are in possession of it works flawlessly.
The mission starts off on the deck of an aircraft carrier, giving you ample time to look out the window and at the cockpit – marvelling at the apparent realism of it all. And then, like a modern day After Burner, you’re catapulted into the sky and sent off to intercept some enemy aircraft, at least one of which is some kind of weird boomerang-shaped craft. As you can see in the interview Kono implies that although you’ll always be flying real aircraft they’ll eventually be given sci-fi weapons, with some of the screenshots seeming to show an F-15 firing a laser gun.
There was none of that in the demo we played though, as we banked and weaved amongst the clouds, trying to get a target lock with our (apparently infinite) missiles. The reason there are so many flight and space simulators for VR is that for the first time it makes the process of tracking enemies easy, as you simply follow them with your head – rather than relying on multiple camera views.
This works perfect in Ace Combat 7, and although we never saw any of the enemies put up much of a fight we were genuinely upset when the experience ended and we had to stop. The potential for VR in general has barely been tapped at all, but it’s experiences like this that prove what a game-changer it can really be. We don’t know what the rest of Ace Combat 7 is going to be like, but we can say that the VR missions alone make this one of our most anticipated games of the year.
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GC: Why were you not able to make the entirety of Ace Combat 7 playable in VR? Was this because some scenarios were too hectic or simply because you haven’t had the time necessary?
KK: There are several reasons. First of all, the power of the normal game and VR is totally different. Also, the users who can play in a VR environment are still a minority. A lot of users who will actually play Ace Combat 7 would like to have an experience as a brushed-up ace pilot in the scenario of campaign mode. If we made the product focusing on VR spec and adjusting all the features based on VR, we will end up just offering a campaign mode which can be expressed or processed with VR. This is not what we would like, nor users would like either.
GC: Would you approach the game any differently if it was being made purely for VR, and what, if anything, have you had to change to make the current mode work well – when compared to the main campaign?
KK: The direction Ace Combat VR should be taking is a first person experience where you won’t notice you are in the living room, you’ll forget your daily life, and continue to think you are an ace pilot as soon as you put the HMD on. You cannot achieve this if you have a third person camera and theatrical expression.
Even the interface and mode selections, which are common for the game system will be factors of making you aware that you are not in the game universe. Even though these are customary things, we have to be sceptical and create new ideas from scratch.
If we make the main campaign mode in VR, we have to make it from the user and pilot point of view even when explaining each scenario. For example, during the conversation with people, it is not realistic if you hear music up in the air suddenly. Therefore, even though it is the same Ace Combat, desired VR content and numbered title content will be totally different.
GC: What have been your general impressions of working with VR and how easy is it to add support from a development perspective?
KK: VR is currently the most useful method which makes you think the game’s universe is your own reality. However, the performance is not sufficient and the device has lots of issues in order to make users satisfied from the business point of view.
Current content can be added from the development side but we will end up using resources for a very limited audience, and face an unbalanced and difficult reality unless we have the environment in which people in general can enjoy VR more casually. I think the current situation is to have a high hope for the possibility of VR and make people glimpse the future of Ace Combat.
GC: Have you ever considered making a similar or spin-off game featuring more sci-fi style vehicles, or perhaps transforming mechs? The potential VR has to expand the market for simulation style games seems enormous. [We were actually thinking of Robotech/MacrossValkyrie fighters, even though Bandai Namco owns rival franchise Gundam – GC]
KK: Regarding spin-offs of Ace Combat, we always have ideas but whether it is suitable for VR or not is different matter. The possibility of VR is like I mentioned before, there is a hurdle we need to overcome in order to expand the VR game market and I am not optimistic to think that we can overcome that with just limited content power.
If the current situation stays, there is a possibility of ending up as only a few people’s favourite. In order to make VR blend into people’s daily life, it will need an initiation strength and will need to make another stride forward. However, please enjoy Ace Combat 7 without thinking about this. Your right to enjoy the game has been accomplished already.
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Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – is that an F-15 with a laser gun?
Source: Metro