Ace Fight 8: Wings of Theve isn’t out till Oct. 2, however Bandai Namco already has massive plans for the franchise’s future. In an interview with Polygon, Ace Fight model director Kazutoki Kono teased story DLC and Ace Fight 9 as he mentioned the way forward for the sequence.
Kono’s feedback got here when discussing Bandai Namco Aces, a studio that was established in 2022 as a devoted Ace Fight crew. Earlier than Bandai Namco Aces, the builders of an Ace Fight sport would scatter to completely different initiatives between video games, Kono defined. The brand new construction allowed the builders to concentrate on the sequence transferring ahead, working in specialised groups. In explaining how that labored in follow, Kono implied that the story crew is already gearing as much as work on one thing new as soon as Ace Fight 8’s marketing campaign is completed.
“We have already introduced that Ace Fight 8 goes to have a live-service factor to it, in order that wants its personal crew to repeatedly develop new content material,” Kono stated. “And I have not actually spoken a lot about this but, however even the principle storyline, as soon as the crew is finished, there’s one other problem awaiting them. And even additional down the road, Ace Fight 9, maybe, as we proceed the franchise.”
Bandai Namco has but to formally verify story DLC for Ace Fight 8. An FAQ on the game’s website solely teases future expansions: “The Ace Fight sequence has an extended historical past of supporting gamers with further post-launch content material. Whereas we’re not able to share particulars about future content material plans at the moment, we stay up for sharing extra data sooner or later.”
Kono’s remark is the primary indication we’ve gotten that extra missions could be on the playing cards in future updates. That might be in step with Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, which added three further missions to the sport post-launch.
As for Kono invoking Ace Fight 9, that speaks to his confidence in Bandai Namco Aces as a “extra self-sustaining” operation. He famous that the crew’s purpose is to concentrate on fostering institutional data, creating know-how that can be utilized on different initiatives, and “enhance the potential for smaller groups to develop and tackle completely different features of the sport.”
“On the heart of improvement are folks, human expertise. With a view to help their progress and future path, we want that data to be retained,” Kono stated. “When each individual individually is ready to develop to a special stage, what that does is create extra improvement strains. Totally different groups can type round these individuals who have retained data.”
Ace Fight 8: Wings of Theve launches on Oct. 2 for PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Collection X.