Ace Combat Zero

Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, published in Europe as Ace Combat: The Belkan War, is the eighth installment in the Ace Combat franchise and a prequel to Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War. The game was developed alongside Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation and released in 2006. It was the first Ace Combat game to be released under the newly-merged Namco Bandai. The setting takes place in an alternate universe called "Strangereal", during the eponymous Belkan War.

The single-player campaign follows the story of a legendary mercenary ace, "Cipher", and his impact on both the outcome of the Belkan War and the lives of the enemy aces he defeated in combat. The story is narrated in retrospect by Osean journalist Brett Thompson and a series of his interviews with Belkan War veterans, in particular with Cipher's former wingman Larry "Pixy" Foulke.

The central feature of the game is a dualistic moral alignment system based on the player's treatment of neutral targets. Unlike the previous games in the series, Zero features non-hostile destructible "yellow targets" (called so because they are highlighted yellow on the radar). These targets are either civilian ground facilities or previously hostile planes that took critical damage and attempt to escape the battle airspace. Yellow targets are harmless and are not required to destroy in order to complete the mission, so neither the wingman, nor allied planes will target them. However, since destroying yellow targets brings additional credits, the player is given the option to shoot them at their discretion.