Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War (2006)
Genres:Simulator
Themes:Action, Warfare
Game modes:Single player, Multiplayer
Story:The sixth installment in the Ace Combat series explores the Belkan War, a devastating conflict alluded to in Ace Combat 5. In the game's main story mode, the player takes control of a mercenary pilot, callsign "Cipher", taking part in the Belkan War by advancing through aerial combat, escort, assault, and defense missions. The story is told through the eyes of a reporter, 10 years after the conflict, uncovering secrets of the war by interviewing some of the pilots the player shoots down.Show more
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The Ace Combat series is rightfully known as one of the most accessible flight sims in history, combining realistic aesthetics with arcade physics to create an experience that feels gritty without needing an elaborate interface of instruments. But there was a brief time when the games were also known for their storytelling. Rather than relying on the most obvious, bombastic Hollywood tropes, Ace Combat told war stories more akin to All Quiet on the Western Front, or For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Even as the gameplay focuses on winning a war, the narrative concerns the people living through the war in the long term. Stories like Ace Combat Zero are more important now than ever, as we see conflicts in Palestine, Burkina Faso, and Ukraine. These are modern wars with advanced weapons produced at an industrial scale. Tools of murder are deployed against people who die never knowing why they were targeted, who made the decision, or what it was meant to accomplish.
These are stories about despair, where the individual pilot's feelings on the war are meaningless in the face of its inevitability. And they are stories about hope, in which people emerge from war more patient, more understanding, and intent on never letting it happen again.
Yes to everything user @thesmallpox said. My experience with Ace Combat comes from the perspective of a Muslim born in a post-9/11 world, where most war media was obsessed with revering Western war machines: the same machines responsible for the deaths of countless millions in neocolonial wars. Ace Combat provided a war story that, on the surface, seemed to be about heroes and cool planes—and it is—But Zero, while unable to shed the heroic framing, offered something refreshing, and something important, as user 'thesmallpox' puts it.
"These are stories about despair, where the individual pilot's feelings on the war are meaningless in the face of its inevitability."
Yet, in the more optimistic world of Strangereal, these are also stories about hope, ones that I wish more people would learn from. Once more, as user @thesmallpox puts it.
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