Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown Review — The Entry That Settled What the Series Is For

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is the first new mainline Ace Combat since 2014’s Ace Combat Infinity, and it is the best-selling game in the franchise’s history: more than seven million units across all platforms by January 2026. It arrived on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in January 2019, on Windows the following month, and on Nintendo Switch in July 2024. Seven years on, it remains the entry that settled what the series is for.

Trailer, via IGDBcom.

The space elevator over Usea

Project Aces built Ace Combat 7 on Unreal Engine 4, the first game in the series to do so, and paired it with trueSKY for the clouds. The result is the cleanest argument the franchise has ever made for its own skies. The game returns to Strangereal, the fictional Earth with its own nations and history, and sets the Lighthouse War of 2019 between the Osean Federation and the Kingdom of Erusea.

The war’s spark is the International Space Elevator, a communications tower off the coast of western Usea that converts atmospheric energy. Osea’s former president, Vincent Harling, ordered it built and framed it as a step toward lasting peace. Erusea read it as Osean imperialism pressed against Erusean sovereignty. That disagreement is the whole war.

Two flying-wing airborne carrier drones, the Arsenal Birds named Liberty and Justice, guard the elevator. They carry combat drones, advanced weaponry and force fields, and draw power by microwave transmission from the ISEV itself. Erusea seizes the elevator and both Arsenal Birds in a surprise attack on Osea.

Trigger, Spare Squadron, and the frame story

You fly as Trigger, an Osean pilot and a silent protagonist. An accusation of murder lands him in a penal squadron, and the campaign becomes a run of missions flown by a man with nothing left to lose but his record.

Between missions, pre-rendered cutscenes carry the frame story through three sets of eyes: Avril Mead, an Osean mechanic and penal laborer sent to Spare Squadron; Rosa Cossette D’Elise, princess and heir to the Erusean throne; and Dr. Schroeder, a Belkan scientist developing advanced combat drones. Soldiers, engineers and royalty on both sides end up asking what they are actually fighting for. That structure is the game’s quietest asset. The war gets a shape beyond the cockpit.

Novice, Expert, and 28 aircraft

Ace Combat 7 skips a realistic flight model on purpose. The handling is faster and more arcade-like, built to stay open to new players. Novice and Expert control settings split the difference: Expert unlocks rolls, high-G turns and Cobra maneuvers for anyone who wants them.

The roster runs to 28 aircraft, with nine more as downloadable content and the F-4E Phantom II as a pre-order bonus. Most are licensed from real manufacturers, alongside a set of fictional superplanes. The Su-30 family makes its series debut, as do upgraded versions of older aircraft like the Gripen E and the A-10C Thunderbolt II.

You start in the F-16C. After the fourth single-player mission you can unlock the MiG-21 and the F-104C Starfighter without spending anything. The F-22A Raptor, the Su-57 and the fictional X-02S Strike Wyvern sit at the top of the tech tree.

Military Result Points and the tech tree

Currency is earned in gameplay as Military Result Points, then spent through a tech tree on aircraft and equipment. Every plane carries standard missiles for air-to-air and air-to-ground work, plus one special weapon. Anti-ship missiles and laser weapons widen what a given airframe can do. Engine and airframe parts push speed and survivability past base performance. Only eight upgrades may be applied to an aircraft.

PlayStation 4 owners get a set of missions built specifically for the PlayStation VR headset. It is a side room, not the house, but it is the only place the series has put the player inside the cockpit in that way.

Release schedule

Ace Combat 7 against the series

The Switch port matters more than its four-year lag suggests. It is the first mainline Ace Combat on a Nintendo home console, and it puts the game in front of an audience that never had a reason to try the series. The Infinity comparison is thinner: that game was the last new entry before this one, and it is the reason the gap between releases felt so long.

What holds up, and what does not

The dogfighting is the point and it lands. The arcade model is a deliberate trade, and it buys accessibility without gutting the skill ceiling — Expert controls exist for the players who want the Cobra maneuver, and the tech tree gives everyone a reason to keep flying. The Arsenal Birds are the campaign’s best idea: a boss that is also infrastructure, a weapon that only works because the thing everyone is fighting over keeps powering it.

The PlayStation VR missions are the weakest return on the package. A handful of bespoke missions is a demonstration, not a mode, and seven years of hindsight have not made it feel less like a sampler. The frame story is stronger than its reputation. Avril, Rosa and Schroeder give the war a cost that a cockpit camera cannot.

Seven million units is not an accident, and it is not nostalgia. Ace Combat 7 is the entry that proved the series could modernize its engine and its audience without abandoning the fictional world that gives its wars weight. The sequel, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, arrives October 2, 2026, and it inherits a franchise in better shape than it has been in two decades.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown scores 8.1 of 10.

Ace Combat 7 · flight combat games · game review · Nintendo Switch · Project Aces · PS4