Ace Combat 7 finally got its first DLC mission today, titled Unexpected Visitors, and it was a total blast! The story involves Osea planning to capture an Erusean super-sub dubbed the Alicorn. The Alicorn is a monstrous beast that is equipped with rail guns and a squadron of fighters that can take off from its deck. The mission involves you flying in as Trigger, with the rest of Strider Squadron, to secure air superiority for an advancing Osean landing fleet. You are ridiculously outnumbered in this fight and it is amazing! The only other levels in the game that have this many enemies are the Arsenal Bird missions.
The mission is a timed one where you have to score a number of points before the timer runs out to activate the next part. in the first segment, you are doing a ton of dogfighting and you really do need to take down as many foes as you can so you can hit that score! After a few minutes, you get some reinforcements to help you out. These reinforcement planes are electronic warfare planes and give you access to ESM when you are in their range of operation. With ESM active enemy missiles have a harder time hitting you and your missiles recharge faster and can more easily hit enemies. It really is OP but quite fun! After a few more minutes the Erusean forces will gain access to their own jamming craft to help negate your ESM, but taking them out can restore your awesome power.
Unexpected Visitors then introduces us to a new enemy ace squadron dubbed Mimic comprised of the sibling’s Rage and Scream. This was a fun fight as Scream will use jamming to try and fool you into missing your shots and screwing with your lock-on. Scream is quite a psycho and after you damage her she and her brother both bailout to presumably be in DLC 5. From here the invasion force draws closer to the Alicorn which has a few surprises of its own! Regardless of how well you protected the advancing fleet the Alicorn melts them all and pulls out into open waters and launched off a series of aircraft.
One of these aircraft is armed with a devastating cruise missile. The conclusion of the mission has you chasing down this squad of enemies to destroy the one carrying the missile. This part was pretty neat as the wingmen of the main fighter would take hits to shield the missile so I ended up having to take down all 4 planes to get the mission accomplished. After the debrief we get to see some investigation work go into figuring out what the captain of the Alicorn might have planned setting us up for DLC 5.
The amount of combat and variety in the mission was great and I have had a blast playing it, 4 completions for myself already! Trying out different craft and weapons to utilize during the ESM has also been fun. 4AAM is quite a blast, literally! For owners of the Ace Combat 7 Season Pass, DLC 4 will cost nothing extra. To purchase the mission by itself will cost you $4.99.
What do you think of the new mission?!
