Today, Bandai Namco has officially announced that the next instalment of its arcade flight series Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, will be delayed until 2018.
Via the Bandai Namco website, Ace Combat franchise director Kazutoki Kono wrote a short letter revealing the dalay and the reasons behind it. “The Project ACES team and I have been working hard on Ace Combat 7 and we’re determined to achieve the vision we have set for the game. In order to reach that vision, we have decided to move the launch of Ace Combat 7 to 2018,” stated Kono. “We would have loved to launch Ace Combat 7 at the end of 2017 as we originally intended, but doing so would compromise our goal for the game. We take our art very seriously and that means we have instead chosen to devote additional time and effort to perfect and optimize this newest chapter of the ACE COMBAT saga.”
“The combination of the Unreal 4 Engine and the power of current generation consoles and PC hardware have literally opened the “skies of opportunity” to us to develop the best ACE COMBAT experience to-date. At no other time in ACE COMBAT’s 20+ year history has gaming technology allowed us to deliver the minute details of flight combat – such as cloud cover and air currents – or give players a new way to experience dogfights and attack sorties through hardware such as the new PlayStation VR,” Kono continued. “We’ll have a lot more information and details to share with you in the coming months, starting at E3 2017 where we plan to reveal a brand-new demo showcasing one of the non-VR missions in ACE COMBAT 7 for the first time ever!”
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown made its debut during the 2015 PlayStation Experience event in San Francisco, revealing that the virtual reality compatibility would be exclusive to PlayStation VR. Since then further trailers and screenshots have been released teasing development.
The announcement is very reminiscent of Capcom’s in April, when director Koshi Nakanishi and producer Masachika Kawata revealed the delay of Resident Evil 7 Biohazard’s ‘Not A Hero’ DLC.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, reporting back with further updates as they’re released.