On August 18, 2021, during a trimmed-down livestream of a lengthy discussion between Ace Combat development staff, brand director Kazutoki Kono confirmed that the next Ace Combat was in production. He also announced that ILCA, who had previously worked on Skies Unknown, would be jointly developing the game with them. Kono explained that appeasing "many fans of all tastes" was not a simple task for the small team at Project Aces, so ILCA will be more deeply involved to add more staff to the next game's development.