You might’ve briefly seen this post a few weeks ago at the end of February when I still had access to my main YouTube channel. That’s where my delisted videos started but due to an unfortunate mishap (which YouTube has yet to respond to) all of that has gone away. I’m still hopeful it’ll be reinstated one day but for now my delisted videos live on their own channel. Ok, updated post commences:
Despite having now written about hundreds of delisted games, it’s still a rare occurrence for me to be actively playing one when the makers announce its end. The latest on that short list is Ace Combat Infinity, Namco’s free-to-play iteration of the arcade flight shooter that’s been up and running since 2014. With the Project Aces team now fully committed to the upcoming Ace Combat 7, the time has come to spin down Ace Combat Infinity. It’s a sad but understandable decision.
I’m no Ace myself (and still fly some low-to-mid tier aircraft) but that didn’t stop me from recording as much as I could before the end. It’s all rolling out over the next few weeks in a Delisted Special Series playlist that will be updated every day. First up is a little refresher for myself and an overview of the game for anyone new to the title. It’s a first-boot situation, seeing the shutdown announcement for the first time before navigating through the game’s gargantuan upgrade and unlock systems.
The next eight days will feature the game’s campaign missions where classic Ace Combat scenarios are retooled around a short new story. These are all commentary-free and I use the default aircraft for as pure an experience as possible. After that I’ll roll out several of the game’s Online Co-Op and Team Deathmatch missions which I recorded in an attempt to capture each of the unique missions, modes, and locations.
Finally, there’s one video from my last night with the game where I’m on the mic, airing all my parting thoughts while trying (and failing) to connect to a match. Absolutely last is a brief “what remains” clip of what happens when you boot the game up after it’s been shut down.