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“War was an abstract idea, nothing more than a show on TV. As a child I only saw it as something that happened in some far away land…”

The Ace Combat series has occupied a large chunk of my brain ever since I first played Ace Combat 4 back in 2021.

On the surface, Ace Combat is an arcade game where you fly a fighter jet while pulling impossible turns and carrying an amount of ammunition that would put a small nation’s air force to shame.

Yet, beneath that surface there is something more to it, something more that my brain yearns to understand and put to paper. Something about countries, drones, corporations, militaries, war and even genocide.

To do so, before Ace Combat 8 is released after a 7 year break on the 1st of October, I want to take a look at the past games of the series.

I will skip of over Ace Combat, Ace Combat 2, Ace Combat 6 (even though there is an argument that it is the most politically loaded in the series, I am yet to play it) and Ace Combat Advance, because it’s Ace Combat Advance.

Ace Combat 4, released in 2001, feels like the best place to start, as it is also the first game I played. Developed by Project Aces and released by Bandai Namco, 4 would become the start of the “golden age” of Ace Combat games that featured on the Playstation 2.

Before we even get to the game, the first thing that popped up at me was the ‘splash screen’ you get with all of the trademark information. In a bizzare, 4th Wall breaking moment, you’re greeted with the colourful logos of real-life defence contractors, despite the fact that the Ace Combat series (mostly) takes place in a fictional universe and a fictional planet.

The conflicts are fake, yet the planes you get to fly in the games are (mostly) real, products to be made and sold. Obviously, Project Aces needs licenses from these companies to recreate their “products” in game, which is why their logos are plastered all over the screen before you can even begin.

Instantly, the tone changes. The first time you boot up the game, one line from a song greets you: “I have so far to go.”

When you begin the game, a cutscene plays, depicting a boy who lives a relatively normal life, narrated by an older version of himself, until war comes for his hometown. And takes away his family. A plucky guitar accompanies the scene, which is drawn in the same style as the bulk of 90s anime.

You play as Mobius 1, a mute pilot, that you never actually see. He can turn with G-forces that would simply knock someone out and, spoiler alert for a 25 year old game, single-handedly turns the entire war around for the Independent State Allied Forces, or ISAF. The Youtuber Jacob Geller has a very interesting take on the Ace Combat protagonists in his video.

Also no, I don’t know if this ISAF has anything to do with the same ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) that was created in the same year.

The gameplay loop of Ace Combat is very simple and varies little from game to game. Begin mission, blow up the enemy, end mission. But it doesn’t draw the line between ally and enemy as clearly as other games, movies or any media really does.

The enemy, in this case the Kingdom of Erusea, is never portrayed doing something cruel, besides invading their neighbours, which is later revealed to have been the plot of an organization within its miliary-esque government.

The boy we follow in between the gameplay sections of the game has to move in with his deadbeat uncle after losing his family. He finds work in a local tavern, where Eursean pilots frequent. Among them is a squadron called “Yellow”, and among them is the leading pilot of the Erusean airforce, “Yellow 13”.

The boy eventually creates a bond with Yellow 13, who likes to be quiet and play his guitar, when the boy joins him with his harpsichord, playing his dad’s favourite song. Soon, all of Yellow squadron shares a bond with him, but the boy has a deep admiration for Yellow 13.

He was a man who prided himself not on his kill records, but on never losing a squadron member.

Oddly noble for someone who is the “enemy”.

You play through the game, liberating places under Erusean occupation and eventually you get to the boy’s hometown and to my favourite mission of the game, if not one of my favourite missions of the entire series: Emancipation.

Another thing that Ace Combat prides itself with is its music. Throughout the game plays a soundtrack that is unique to each mission, evoking specific emotions, be it joyous or depressing.

But in Emancipation, everything works to create a level of tension that is beyond anything that came before. The weather is dark and gloomy, a news reporter is reporting gunfire between resistance members and the Erusian military, the echoing of the jets, the smoke, the glint of the afterburners in a city of complete darkness.

The ISAF is victorious, Mobius 1, the pilot with the “ribbon”, is the hero of the day once again. The town is liberated, but the boy does not celebrate. He follows the retreating Eruseans.

The ISAF eventually reaches Erusea’s capital, Farbanti where Yellow 13 and Mobius 1 meet in one final battle. There is no dramatic music, there is no condescending monologue on the radio, in a silent duel, Mobius 1 is victorius, Farbanti has fallen and the ISAF are the victors.

And when you think that its over, the game decides to go out with a bang. Young Erusean officers have taken control over Megalith, a super-weapon. Mobius 1 alongside the newly formed Mobius squadron is sent to deal with it.

Then latin chanting unlike anything that the game has come up with before hits you like a truck, to the point where if I hadn’t played the game I wouldn’t have believed was in the game

“Lamb of God, that cleanses the world from Sin, Grant them eternal rest, Whom cleanses the world from Sin”.

With that, it’s over. The boy writes to Mobius 1, to ask what it was like to fly and battle with Yellow 13.

The game, despite the fact that it’s built all around fighter jets, has a clear cut anti-war message. Through the boy, we see his life change, his vibrant town fall into isolation. But he doesn’t resent the enemy, even though they are partly reason the for why he lost his parents.

There are those who do, and there are also those that welcome the enemy, collaborate with them. Yellow 13 is a noble fighter and Erusea’s reasoning for its invasion stems from political instability, natural devastation and poverty, rather than ideology. A war caused by the fact that the planet failed to respond collectively and equally to an emergency.

The deadpan narration of the story helps sell its message, whereas the radio chatter that plays while you are playing is often cheesy. While you are flying high above, mowing down one Erusean jet aftor another, the breaks in between shows you, however briefly, that the consequences of conflict are real and not for shock value, but to tell a wholehearted tale about a boy who’s life had completely turned upside down due to a conflict he had no part in.

Even though a peace deal is signed, we never see the politicians or the diplomats. We never get to hear what they have to say. We follow one order after another, crushing any Erusean that dares to stand in their way, we are told that we have avoided Armageddon and that we have ‘achieved’ peace. Which as it would turn out with Ace Combat 7 (2019), was a complete fabrication.

One last song plays as the credits roll in, which perhaps tries to give that message to the player more directly, that we have to do more to avoid tragedy like this, again and again and again like we always seem to do in our own world.

“I have so far to go, only heaven knows, Still so far to go, heaven knows.”