Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4436775-20130713014204/@comment-9984046-20130721175108

The Big Boss RV-210 wrote: SlyCooperFan1 wrote: There's rumors that've been going around the mill (believable ones) that Namco-Bandai are the guys forcing PA into a chokehold to make Ace Combat take place on Earth. That's why we got Assault Horizon on the consoles, after what they deemed was a failure concerning AC6. PA put their best effort into that game, and I commend them for that.

However, a retcon like this gives them much more freedom. Yeah, we don't have Osea, Yuktobania, North Point, Erusea, Belka, etc. but we still have what looks like the same event. Ulysses brought Strangereal to its knees, and it'll likely do the same thing for Earth.

I'm not exactly... worried, so much as I am watchful. This could go one of two ways, and there's a fine line separating the outcomes of success and failure. But I have faith in these guys. As long as they don't bring Jim DeFelice back (who I do not blame for mediocre storyline, at least not fully), and as long as they don't use any outside author like him, then I think we'll be very happy with Infinity. But again, we have to wait for details (seems like no one in the fandom is thinking of doing that, even if it is just pure speculation). I've never heard of those rumours before, actually. If they are true, boy do they explain a lot of the recent happenings in Ace Combat! XD

But, personally, I don't believe that this retcon gives PA more freedom. Instead, with countries like Osea, Yuktobania, North Point, Erusea, Belka and all the rest of them, PA could take influence from various countries of the real world and shape their history to fit the narrative they strived to achieved for this particular country. Osea and Yuktobania may not be the best example, them two being clearly an analogy for USA and Russia respectively, but take a country like Erusea for example. They have influences from both Germany and USSR, the country has such a rich historical background which justmakes me drool just by looking at it.

I'm afraid that, by forcing PA do the same thing on the Real world (taking Strange into Real), they won't have the same creative freedom with pre-established countries like Russia, USA, Germany, France, Greece and the like Instead, they will have to use the corresponding countries' social and historical archetypes and try to do away with them. This can either turn really-really good or really-really bad. We will have to wait for more details though, that's a certainty.

Thankfully, this time they won't be having an outside author to write the story. This will probably mean we'll get to see an awesome story and not just another generic MW=WW story we've been chewing on from most war games the last three, four years. Strongly disagree with this. It's possible to have creative freedom with a real world setting, such as a fictional war between two real nations, an alternate WWIII storyline, a possible 'what-if' story between two nations, etc. It's just that AC fans hate the real world setting simply because Joint Assault's story summed itself up as a tale of insurance fraud.