Jun 242024
I know what you’re thinking.
Another Ace Attorney post? The Ace Attorney Investigations Collection was just announced last week, with an Ace Attorney Investigations 2 localization after all this time, and I’m already speculating about Ace Attorney 7 again?
Yes, it would be logical to assume that with the Investigations duology on the horizon, we shouldn’t expect any other Ace Attorney news for quite a while.
But I’m not convinced.
In fact, the timing makes me wonder if Ace Attorney 7 might be closer than we think.
When you have a series like this, spacing out your releases makes sense. You want to give people time to buy and play the first one before you dangle another in front of them. So with the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy having come out at the end of January, I would have expected the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection to come out early next year at best.
But it’s coming out this September. Less than 8 months after the previous Ace Attorney collection, the Investigations Collection will be available.
I’m not complaining; I’m delighted that it’s so close, but why do it that way? Spacing them out more would make more sense… unless there’s a new game on the horizon. Because you know what else is happening in September? The 2024 Tokyo Game Show, a prime candidate for where a new Ace Attorney game might be announced.
When I think of it like that, everything fits. They are building off the momentum from re-releasing games 4-6, with Ace Attorney 7 to be announced at TGS… but they want the whole series (except the crossover) on modern platforms first, so they’ve slotted Investigations into early September ahead of TGS. Heck, maybe Ace Attorney 7 will include Investigations characters, and so they specifically want it out first.
Either way, while the announcement of the Investigations Collection would normally make me temper my Ace Attorney 7 hopes for a while, its release date being so close has had the opposite effect instead.
We’re getting two Ace Attorney collections in the same year. That’s crazy! And what better reason to do that than if 2025 is set for the long-awaited return of the series with a brand-new game?
(On the other hand, my predictions of Capcom’s Ace Attorney behavior – “Capcom will localize Great Ace Attorney in 2023 when Sherlock Holmes enters public domain;” no, they called him Sholmes and released it in 2021; “Capcom won’t announce any Ace Attorney games until the Ghost Trick remaster is out;” no, they announced the Apollo Justice Trilogy a couple weeks before Ghost Trick’s release date; “Capcom will announce Ace Attorney 7 before an Investigations collection to build off the momentum from 4-6;” no, here we are with the Investigations Collection announced first – have pretty much all been wrong, so I might be entirely off-base again.)
What do you think? Will we get an Ace Attorney 7 announcement this year?
I think they may not announce a new Ace Attorney right away if they are worried it would take away current sales momentum as opposed to boosting momentum.
However… my pie-in-the-sky announcement is that, with a new Layton game on the horizon, we might get an upgraded port of the crossover game!
I think that’s more likely than AA7 at this point, but we shall see 😂
I think the crossover is extremely unlikely based on Level-5’s track record with ports, but all of my other predictions have been wrong, so who knows?