Well it is the 3rd Longest Campaign in the Series, (second longest for a single run) 30 Missions and most of these Missions can be long.

I think I am 4/5ths done with the Missions, and it has been about 14 hours on Veteran Difficulty, So I would say the game is about 18-20 Hours. And if you are a person who does S Rank, or try harder difficulties like Elite or Ace, or trying to unlock the super jets

Considering that the game has multiple difficulties, challenge medals to unlock, and clearing missions with "S" rating, it has hours worth of replayability.

The multiplayer right now is a mixed bag of disappointments but I do believe PA will fix the bugs that happening (i hope), so, you can consider taking a dip on the multiplayer aspects down the line.

The single player portion has a tree to slowly unlock various planes and parts to affect their performance. You're not getting it all on one campaign run. Once you clear a mission the first time in your first campaign you can fly it again in Free Flight or Mission, or whatever it's called.

Personally I enjoyed the campaign and have done numerous Free Mission repeats to grind the line out and unlock the Aircraft Tree fully. Still WiP.

Whether that's worth it for $69 USD? I dunno, but I also do a bit of Aces Online, too. You could wait for a sale. It's October after all and there's sales in the future if you're patient.

I pre-ordered it solely to get AC Zero. Honestly, for both games, it's worth it.
The major downers are the multiplayer complete with a Destiny-like lobby-hub and HOW THE HELL DO I KILL PIXY?????

Originally posted by wombat93:

The single player portion has a tree to slowly unlock various planes and parts to affect their performance. You're not getting it all on one campaign run. Once you clear a mission the first time in your first campaign you can fly it again in Free Flight or Mission, or whatever it's called.

Personally I enjoyed the campaign and have done numerous Free Mission repeats to grind the line out and unlock the Aircraft Tree fully. Still WiP.

Whether that's worth it for $69 USD? I dunno, but I also do a bit of Aces Online, too. You could wait for a sale. It's October after all and there's sales in the future if you're patient.

Oh is that like the MGSV style where you have to advance through the campaign to get unlocks, then later go back to play for higher scores which otherwise would be impossible without those unlocks?

Even though I love the game, if you're waffling at this price point I would wait. Unless you really need the Pixy battlepass.

Bamco games are always too damn expensive for some reason, and waiting will get some of the more annoying bugs squashed.

Ace Combat always has been worthy for singleplayer campaign

Originally posted by Banjo:

Even though I love the game, if you're waffling at this price point I would wait. Unless you really need the Pixy battlepass.

Bamco games are always too damn expensive for some reason, and waiting will get some of the more annoying bugs squashed.

Is the campaign buggy? I was watching the video of moistcritikal play this game, and the story interest me so much I turn off the video because I do not want further spoilers.

Originally posted by Voca:

Originally posted by wombat93:

The single player portion has a tree to slowly unlock various planes and parts to affect their performance. You're not getting it all on one campaign run. Once you clear a mission the first time in your first campaign you can fly it again in Free Flight or Mission, or whatever it's called.

Personally I enjoyed the campaign and have done numerous Free Mission repeats to grind the line out and unlock the Aircraft Tree fully. Still WiP.

Whether that's worth it for $69 USD? I dunno, but I also do a bit of Aces Online, too. You could wait for a sale. It's October after all and there's sales in the future if you're patient.

Oh is that like the MGSV style where you have to advance through the campaign to get unlocks, then later go back to play for higher scores which otherwise would be impossible without those unlocks?

I haven't played a Metal Gear game since MGS on PS1 haha

When you do missions / free missions in AC8, you get MRP, the resource you use to unlock parts and planes in the campaign's Aircraft Tree.

Later unlocks, planes do let you have better performance compared to your starter F/A-18 or other ultra low tier aircraft like the A-6 Intruder, MiG-21. You can beat late missions flying early planes. I killed a certain character in his Su-57 with me flying the MiG-21 (thank you SASM missiles). In the ground pound role, F-15E Strike Eagle is far superior to my early game A-6 Intruder, but I still do more than fine and have fun with the Intruder.

Originally posted by Voca:

Originally posted by Banjo:

Even though I love the game, if you're waffling at this price point I would wait. Unless you really need the Pixy battlepass.

Bamco games are always too damn expensive for some reason, and waiting will get some of the more annoying bugs squashed.

Is the campaign buggy? I was watching the video of moistcritikal play this game, and the story interest me so much I turn off the video because I do not want further spoilers.

I have never had any noticeable bugs, freezes, or CTDs in single player. Maybe something is actually wrong out there but nothing that made me go, "Devs need to square this away ASAP."

Multiplayer though there's issues.

Yes, totally. It's a lot better than the clusterfudge that was AC7, for sure. It ties AC5 for my favorite of the franchise.

This is Ace Combat, where the main campaign is the core experience that is worth every cent, unlike Battlefield

Campaign took me bit under 19hours on Elite difficulty, but I am a seasoned veteran in this game and had to restart a mission less than five times. Ace of aces (earn S rank on all missions on post-game ACE difficulty) took me 17 hours. So in total the single player was 36 hours, but I've played Ace combat games since Air combat on PS1. Either you get a fair bit more hours out of the game or I'm just washed up old man and the game is easier than predecessors.

Yes, yes, and yes.

It's primarily a single player experience and there's plenty to enjoy, especially with multiple play throughs.

On mission 25 out of 30 so far and YES. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ great single player experience.