Ace Combat director has spent 30 years making jet games — and never flown in one

Kazutoki Kono, the face of Ace Combat, has worked on the series since contributing to 1997's Ace Combat 2. He began on the art team making textures and bits of the UI and has risen to the role of series brand director over a three-decade career. Despite nearly 30 years of making games about Top Gun–style stunts and supersonic flight, Kono says he and the rest of the team have never gotten to fly in a real fighter.

"Unfortunately over the last 30 years of my career I've been appealing, saying 'hey, we want to ride in one of these jets!' but we have not yet had the chance," he said. "Neither myself, or anyone on the team." For Ace Combat 8 the team tried to better convey the feeling of piloting at more than 1,200 miles per hour, with sound design a major focus.

"Sound design was a huge part of Ace Combat 8—that oomph when you're crossing the sound barrier is something we pay a lot of attention to," Kono said, and the developers rely on publicly available data like weight and thrust to distinguish how different jets feel.

ace combat, kazutoki kono, jet games, fighter jets, supersonic flight, sound design, top gun, flight realism, textures, thrust