Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26372030-20151206001252/@comment-2094030-20151210112146

The problen with AC3 is its setting. The setting is all futuristic with no more old-style air combat in sight. To make things worse, the end of ACX was so close to AC3, only a small window is left open for conventional planes before the world turns to flying COFFINs. It's a major barrier that prevents future Ace Combat games to return to the conventional planes. If the setting is after AC3, there's almost no way conventional planes would return considering the advantages COFFIN offers. The only way to remove that barrier is to consider that AC3 was only a simulation and never happened in reality.