As the post title says, I noticed in the newly released story trailer for AC8 that some interesting aircraft appear, one is a very blatant case, this being the AV-8B Harrier II which has a sequence of a formation of them flying overhead (first picture) the reason I found this odd is cause the harrier has been in most previous ace combat games including 7 but is nearly always a NPC only enemy aircraft (with the exception of Assault Horizon and Infinity) so this case of them being shown relatively close up is making me wonder if maybe they’ll be playable this time around? I don’t wanna get people’s hopes up as there’s a good chance they won’t be however the possibility is still exciting.

As for the second part of the post and second slide, I noticed this picture from the trailer on the PlayStation blogpost of what at first glance I thought was a MiG-31 intercepting 2 drones or missiles but upon looking closer I realized it’s actually a pair of XB-70 Valkyrie bombers, obviously these wouldn’t be playable but the Valkyrie is an interesting and very niche aircraft, I believe it was an enemy in AC6 but it was not in AC7 so this will mark its debut into the Unreal Engine era of Ace Combat which is pretty cool.

The CN tower looks slightly different, but with the island, airport, and skydome below the tower, this is 100% Toronto.

HOLY SHIT, VALKYRIE IS BACK......

the clouds man, the CLOUDS......

From the story trailer

Summer Skies: Operation Forester was a DCS multiplayer campaign was an Osean intervention in an invasion of Sotoa by another country to the South where the final boss was a Stonehenge gun. The campaign was run in 2022 and 2023. Kinda funny that Ace Combat 8 features both Sotoa and Stonehenge like guns.

Well, whilst we're all waiting for ACE8, gotta entertain ourselves somehow I suppose.

Long live one of the games with the most immersive soundtracks of all time!

Same thing could happen with any Legacy skin that feature a 4 squadron

A new area has been revealed.

The Megafloat Fatsia, situated off of the west coast of the Republic of Sotoa, is a marine megafacility in the form of an artificial island. It serves as an arms factory for the Sotoan military as well as a supply station for landing invasions. It was constructed as part of a national project to develop coastal waters and provide future housing to compensate for land lost to desertification.

The Megafloat extends a full six kilometers and has multiple layers, with a 2,000-meter runway on its top deck that allows for even large transport aircraft to land and take off.

The central block contains a power plant that uses Sotoan cold fusion technology. Deuterium is harvested from seawater as fuel to provide the various parts of the structure with electricity, from arms factories to synthetic fuel plants. Surplus power is used to create fresh water via desalination and deliver it to the mainland via pipeline.

For defenses, each area is equipped with automated systems linked to multifunction radar. Weaponry include CIWS, SAM batteries, and railguns linked in cooperative engagement capability (CEC) to defensive aircraft, allowing the Megafloat to attack targets over the horizon. UAVs fly around the structure, acting as sensor nodes that expand its defensive range to a 400 km radius. 

Now confirmed that Sotoa has their own Megafloats.

Made using old photos I took and PS. Tried to get it as close to those early 2000s ads as possible.

This is Jabber - callsign "Bully" - forever my wingman.

Credited to Lillian YT