COVID-19 pandemic

An emblem encouraging social distancing

The COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing real-world pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). As of July 2022, more than 500 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed worldwide, resulting in more than 6 million deaths.

This article goes over the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Ace Combat franchise.

Deaths

Clown's voice actor, Brad Venable, passed away on January 7, 2021. According to fellow voice actor Kyle McCarley, Venable died of a heart attack, but had been diagnosed with COVID-19 the day before. COVID-19 has been observed to cause heart attacks due to blood thickening, making it likely that Venable died as a direct result of COVID-19.

25th Anniversary Delay

See also: March 27, 2020 Update blog post or 25th Anniversary blog post

On March 26, 2020, Kazutoki Kono and Manabu Shimomoto participated in a Famitsu live stream to promote updates related to Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown and the 25th anniversary of Ace Combat which would occur on June 30 that year. Kono revealed that they planned to announce more news but felt doing so would have been "problematic" during the pandemic. Instead, they chose to save more news for the anniversary itself in June if the global situation improves.

As the year went on, the global situation worsened. By June 30, the date of the anniversary, over 10 million cases and over 500,000 deaths were confirmed worldwide while the rate of infection was accelerating. In a statement, Kono admitted that he would look back on the 25th anniversary and "feel slightly disappointed" while noting that "there are many people who are struggling to get through each day, all around the world." He confirmed that all of the plans Project Aces made for the celebration "have been postponed or suspended" but pledged that "the things that we were not able to do this year, we will make it happen, though it might be at a later date." He confirmed that one such plan was a 25th anniversary ACE COMBAT/S THE SYMPHONY. In an effort to continue providing entertainment for the fans, the Original Aircraft Series DLC was released in October 2020, adding three aircraft and a set of Ace Combat Zero skins to Ace Combat 7. Project Aces also designed the Ace Combat 7 Premium Edition, exclusive to Japan, which includes the game and all of its DLCs.

In Famitsu's weekly issue for the last week of 2020, the website interviewed over one hundred creators in the video game industry about the past year and their upcoming plans. Kono announced that Project Aces is beginning their "Ace Combat 25th Anniversary Extension Plan," explaining that whatever they couldn't do in 2020, they have to do in the future. Shimomoto echoed Kono's sentiments, hoping to carry out their 2020 plans, "though in a different form."

Weekly Wallpapers

Main article: Wallpapers

Starting on April 14, Project Aces began releasing new desktop wallpapers every few days on Twitter. Most of these wallpapers were designed to act as virtual meeting backgrounds for fans using webcams to attend online school or work meetings.

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#ACE7Music

Keiki Kobayashi playing the main theme to Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown on piano

Main article: ACE COMBAT Channel

On April 27, Project Aces "hurriedly" launched an official Ace Combat YouTube channel with the goal of providing entertainment during the pandemic. Keiki Kobayashi helped to launch the channel by providing piano recordings of the main themes to Ace Combat 7 and Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War.

Project Aces asked fans who could play any musical instrument to record themselves playing along to the Ace Combat 7 theme and upload it to Twitter using the hashtag #ACE7Music. Kobayashi assisted by releasing the theme's sheet notes the next day. On May 1, Project Aces created a Twitter moment of all of the #ACE7Music creations uploaded up to that point. The team also uploaded a comedy video of various artists accompanying Kobayashi on a toothbrush, a capsule toy, a ruler, hand farts, a glass harp, and an Otamatone.

On May 7, Project Aces uploaded three separate videos of Kobayashi's Ace Combat 7 theme being accompanied by Takanori Goto on guitar, Ayako Himata on violin, and Katsuki Kato on drums.