Sick: Ace Combat 8 has online airbase lobbies where you can bum around as your own bespoke pilotsona

If Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve isn’t one of your most anticipated releases in this fall’s overstuffed launch calendar, I’m just going to say it: It should be. You might be wondering, ‘But isn’t Ace Combat just, like, planes?’ And it is. But it’s some of videogames’ most ridiculously indulgent anime-ass melodrama, mediated through high-g fighter jet maneuvers and the constant refrain of a missile lock alert. It’s like if all of Metal Gear was dogfighting, and in our hands-on AC8 preview, it continued to leave a very strong impression.

As of today, I’ve got even more reasons to be excited for October’s next entry—and a few causes for concern. This morning, Bandai Namco published an “Online 101” video providing a primer on AC8’s multiplayer offerings, all of which I’m pleased to report are accessed through online lobbies where you can mingle with other players as your very own Ace Combat pilotsona.

AC8’s multiplayer seems to take place in a sort of pocket airbase universe where nobody exists except fighter pilots and the people who facilitate things that fighter pilots do. There, after creating your pilot-self by choosing from a selection of pilot-core faces and features, you can mill around with your fellow pilot-kin, communicating via a rich gestural pilot dialect of emotes. There is a stage for pilots to stand on. There is an arcade for pilots to play, and there the pilots can play Pac-Man. For these creatures, it is a sort of Eden.

But the true place of your pilotsona is in the air, and AC8’s multiplayer matches are based around two primary modes: Co-Op Assault is a competitive PvE mode, where two teams of four pilots aim to earn the highest score within a time limit by destroying hostile NPC forces.

Co-Op Warfare adds PvP to the mix. It’s still a score race, but both competing teams will be dogfighting in the same airspace as they try to outscore their opponents. As pilots destroy NPC targets, they’ll earn a higher threat level. The higher your threat level, the more points you earn—and the more points you’ll award the other team if they shoot you down.

After returning to the airbase from either mode, there’s a chance you’ll be offered access to special time-limited missions with extra rewards: That could be Scramble, where you and your matchmade wingmen will duel a squad of NPC aces, or Emergency Sortie, where you’ll instead be tasked with destroying “iconic colossal weapons from the Ace Combat series”—like that giant horrid railgun, or that big, wretched drone full of smaller, wretched drones.

Bandai Namco also teased limited-time PvP modes, like straightforward 4v4 deathmatches of eight-pilot free-for-alls.

Ranking up will unlock new aircraft, upgrade parts, aircraft-specific performance enhancements, and both pilot and jet customization options—which brings me to the less thrilling portion of the video. As is apparently inescapable, even Ace Combat is going to have battle passes now, but it sounds like players won’t be locked out of any aircraft rewards after each two-month premium pass season expires: “Any aircraft DLC included in the premium pass will be available for purchase separately after the season ends,” Bandai Namco said.

That’s something, I guess. But it brings me no joy to know that the pure, innocent spirit of my pilotsona will be tainted by the blight of microtransaction schemes. They deserve better than this.

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve launches on Steam on October 1.