Before “Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve” releases next month, fans of Bandai Namco Entertainment’s classic fighter-pilot video game franchise have a few weeks of backstory to brush up on via live-action prequel project “Hour Zero.” Launching its first episode Tuesday, the four-installment short film is a first-of-its-kind project for the video game studio, which will reveal the plot going into the upcoming eighth “Ace Combat” game. Per Bandai Namco Entertainment America’s description for “Hour Zero”: “Three strangers survive the opening days of the Republic of Sotoa’s invasion of the Federation of Central Usea. Josh Holloway stars as a pilot with nowhere to land, Brandon Routh as a doctor who saved his enemy, and Tamlyn Tomita as a news anchor silenced for telling the truth.
Told in reverse and grounded in the family lives of its three leads, their stories count down to the moment when their normal lives were shattered and war began. Their story sets the stage for the narrative players will experience in the deep, engaging Campaign Mode in ‘Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve.’” The project was produced when “Ace Combat 8″ was already relatively far into the game development process, and Holloway had some questions before he agreed to join. Up to that point, his only experience working with a video game studio was voicing a character in 2007’s real-time strategy game “Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and that was cinematic footage for the game itself, not a live-action project.
Because I’d done one a long time ago, but it was kind of on the cheesy side a little bit because it was just an internet game. So I was a little nervous about it, but I loved this game as a teenager. I remember playing the first ‘Ace Combat’ games because they would be in the arcades with the big simulator, and I just loved it back then, and then I kind of went away from gaming for many, many years.
So when they brought this up, I was like, I know this game, of all things, because I don’t know any games. And I’d seen ‘Maverick’ not long ago, so my interest was piqued again towards this type of genre, so I was really interested. I just had some immediate questions.” And once he saw the effort Bandai Namco planned to put into this, Holloway was sold.
Do they have me sitting on an apple box with a toothpick in my hand, or is it an actual fuselage?’” Holloway says. Once I saw the production value and how he was going about it, I was like, oh yeah, I’m in. Let’s do this.” Set for release Oct. 2 across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S and PC, “Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve” takes place amid the lies, conspiracies and gossip that obscure the truth behind an ongoing war and the legendary ace fighting to reclaim the Federation of Central Usea from the Republic of Sotoa.
I’m responsible for everybody. I’ve seen a lot of combat, a lot of death and I’m responsible for these kids. So that brings the stakes because I’m a father.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
