Believe it or not, the Bandai Namco fighter-jet series Ace Combat is now three decades old. To commemorate the anniversary of the first game’s release in Japan on June 30, 1995, the company has put out a neat video showing off how the series has evolved over time.

The short movie highlights clips from various Ace Combat games, giving a glimpse of how the colorful PlayStation 1 art of Air Combat (the first entry in the series) transformed into the hyper-realistic near-future science-fiction of the later entries, such as Ace Combat 7.

In addition to the series sizzle reel, the video also teases some projects in the works to further celebrate the anniversary. For instance, Bandai Namco overhauled the Ace Combat website, and it announced a special symphony to be held on January 31, 2026 at Japan’s Saitama Kaikan concert hall. Bandai Namco also shared that additional projects will be announced beginning in July.

It’s cool to see how far Ace Combat has come since the early days. Being roughly the same age as the series and having grown up in the 2000s, I have a soft spot for Ace Combat 5 and Ace Combat 6. I remember playing the fifth game for hours at kiosks in local Targets, and the sixth was one of the first games I owned on my Xbox 360.

For those of you who, like me, are looking forward to seeing what the Ace Combat team can do with modern hardware, we’ll likely still have to wait for a while. The company announced back in 2021 that a new game is in the works, but there’s been little additional information since then. It does seem like work continues, though: In a post to fans today, series brand director Kazutoki Kono wrote, “We’re ready. Everything is in place. It’s time to take flight once again–toward even greater heights.”

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