Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve
Bandai Namco Aces Inc. · Shooter, Action, Flight
RELEASE MILESTONES
Overview
Soar through the skies and rise above every challenge to earn your place among the elite. Engage in intense aerial combat to dominate the battlefield with powerful weapons. Experience a breathtaking campaign filled with high-stakes missions, hard choices, and deep squad connections.
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Step into the cockpit and take flight as an elite pilot across stunning skies. Enter intense dogfights, eliminate threats, and rise through gripping missions to earn your wings in this game developed by PROJECT ACES, the acclaimed team behind the franchise.
Campaign Mode showcases stunning visuals with dynamic multi-layered cloudscapes that capture the majesty of living skies. Feel the rush of fast-paced arcade-style gameplay while deploying powerful weapons to dominate the battlefield.
Beyond the chaos in the air, exhilarating first-person scenes reveal your pilot’s story through breathtaking cinematics. Experience the pressure of command, the weight of decisions, and the bonds forged in battle. Between missions, bond with your squad members, rise to meet adversity, and prove yourself as a true ace.
ACE COMBAT ONLINE delivers the most expansive multiplayer experience in franchise history. Step into the series’ first online lobby, explore an air base with your custom avatar before diving into multiplayer games. Sortie into online missions with pilots worldwide in a variety of modes including Co-Op and cross platform play.
From the game's Steam store page.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT7,649 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
The campaign gets the most praise: 27% of reviews talk about the story or its characters. Reviewers single out the Joker flight squad, the cutscenes on the carrier between sorties, the soundtrack (17% of reviews bring it up) and the volumetric clouds. Several hundred reviews call it the best Ace Combat yet or one of the best, and some call it a step up from Ace Combat 7 because of wingmen you can command, two special weapon slots and a heavier flight model. That flight model divides players. Many who describe it like the added weight, and a smaller group finds the planes sluggish next to Ace Combat 7.
Most of the frustration is with the PC version. 27% of all reviews, and 58% of the negative ones, raise performance or stability: crashes with the UE-Live "Error 01" message (often during cutscenes), memory use that climbs to 20 to 30 GB of RAM, long shader compiles, and cutscenes that run far worse than the missions. Other complaints cover flight sticks limited to licensed models with no remapping, Linux and Steam Deck players shut out of the online mode by anti-cheat, Ace Combat Zero (which reviewers describe as a pre-order bonus) arriving as a DLC launch option, and the battle pass and premium planes in Ace Combat Online. Some negative reviewers still call the game itself great and vote it down over how it runs.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
The campaign, its story and the Joker flight squadHigh
Fans of Ace Combat 5 and Zero say the squad-focused campaign brings back what they loved: named wingmen with faces, banter on the radio, and cutscenes aboard the carrier between missions instead of the portrait-and-voice briefings of Ace Combat 7. One reviewer wrote that the game "brought back wingmen (who are actually capable this time), put faces to names, built engaging backstory". Tasha, Kate, Baxter and the ghostly voice of Cope come up by name, Tasha most often, and some reviewers say the story moved them to tears ("This is the single game i have played that has genuinely made me cry over its characters"). Reviewers also praise the late missions, the superweapons and the many nods to earlier games in the series.
A minority of reviews call the writing weak, cringeworthy or bland, and a few find the cast childish: "Every character acts like children playing on a jungle gym." Several reviewers who finished the campaign felt the final mission and ending did not match the build-up.
Music and soundtrackHigh
The Latin choral pieces and the chanting in the opening missions are the moments people quote, and several reviewers describe how the music is woven into the missions: "There are moments where it is diegetic, being played over the radio, and it transitions and changes as needed depending on what is happening." A few say the score sounds different from earlier entries.
Visuals, clouds and sound designHigh
12% of reviews mention the graphics, visuals or clouds, mostly in praise of the volumetric clouds ("I've never seen such a beautiful cloud scene.") or the detail of the aircraft and cockpits. A smaller group singles out the sound design: the sonic boom when you break the sound barrier, the thump of a missile leaving the rail, and different engine sounds in cockpit view. One reviewer described "The Thunk as a Missle leaves the wing." Native ultrawide support and DualSense haptics get a few mentions. Some reviewers blame the same visuals for the heavy hardware demands (see the frustrations below).
Wingmen you can command and equipMedium
About 8% of reviews mention the wingmen or squadron. Players like choosing the planes their wingmen fly, giving them orders and seeing them actually down enemies: "Your wingmens, unlike in AC7, feel very impactfull". The main wish is more control; one reviewer noted that "Not being able to select SP weapons for your squadmates planes is a bummer".
Mission variety, two special weapons and a step up from Ace Combat 7Medium
Reviewers describe a long campaign of 30 missions with more set pieces than Ace Combat 7, and 2% of reviews say outright that it beats Ace Combat 7. The second special weapon slot is welcomed by those who mention it. Some returning fans say the missions are more demanding: "I haven't been this pushed or challenged in any Ace Combat game in the ENTIRE series ever before."
A good entry point for newcomersLow
2% of reviews come from people new to the series ("This is my first time playing Ace Combat and I'm really enjoying it."). They mention the training mode and the accessible default controls, though several veterans advise switching to the Expert control scheme.
Where players are split
Ace Combat OnlineHigh
19% of reviews mention the online mode. Fans of Ace Combat Infinity are happy to have co-op PvE raids and quick PvP matches back ("Finally a good PVE experience jet game that isn't A super simulator either"). The complaints are about stability and structure: matches that drop when one player disconnects, error codes like ST-3100001, and connection failures at the end of a match that wipe the rewards ("Network issues right at the end so you don't get credit for the mission."). A few players report 24-hour bans after a crash counted as leaving. Others dislike the menu-heavy social hub and point out that "co-op" refers to the online PvE squads and does not cover the campaign. The battle pass and premium planes are covered separately below.
The heavier flight modelMedium
Many reviewers who describe the handling say the added weight and momentum make dogfights more rewarding: "Planes feel as if they have weight to them; you cannot just point your nose in a direction and expect to go, as you really have to feather your controls." Some find the starter plane sluggish, and a few say upgraded parts and later jets restore the agility. A smaller group finds the change ruins the series' feel: "I want super fast and responsive controls so I can fry my neurons as quickly as possible like in literally every AC game since 4." A common tip from veterans: "Change to Type B for the camera if you're a veteran here."
Ace Combat Zero as a DLC launch optionMedium
8% of reviews mention Ace Combat Zero, which reviewers describe as a pre-order bonus. Those who object are unhappy with how it arrives. They report that on Steam, Zero launches through Ace Combat 8 instead of appearing as its own game, so playing it means installing the full game of roughly 130 to 150 GB, and that it has no separate achievements or playtime. One review warns that "Ace Combat Zero isn't a separate game entry in your Steam library." Some reviewers say the store text was changed from "standalone application" after advance access began. A few reviewers shrug it off as a free bonus or call it "not a deal breaker", and others say the port itself runs well.
Cutscenes, button prompts and radio chatterMedium
Players who love the story enjoy the first-person cutscenes on the carrier. Others find them slow and padded, especially at the start ("Literally a solid hour of cutscenes before you get any gameplay"), and dislike the prompts to press a button to sit, walk or shake hands: "It's a cutscene, just do it." Some reviewers find the radio chatter constant during missions, and others say tutorial pop-ups keep appearing even after they declined the tutorials.
Difficulty spikesLow
Some veterans welcome a tougher campaign. Others hit walls in specific missions: escort and defence objectives that fail quickly, a boss with seemingly endless flares, and fights where "its crazy hard when you only have 6 flares". A few players found the normal difficulty too easy.
What frustrates players
Crashes, memory leaks and PC performanceHigh
Performance or stability comes up in 58% of negative reviews and 27% of all reviews. The recurring problems are crashes with the UE-Live "Error 01" message, most often during cutscenes or the hangar menu; memory use that climbs to 20 to 30 GB of RAM ("AC8 seems to have a massive memory leak problem."); shader compiles on launch and long loading screens; and cutscenes that drop far below the in-mission frame rate ("cutscenes are atrocious fluctuating from highs of 47 fps to lows of around 25"). Some reviewers lost mission progress to a crash before the next save. A few Intel Arc owners report the game crashing in the first mission, and several Steam Deck players say it barely runs. One early review summed it up as "Beta testing at a deluxe price".
Results vary by machine. Some positive reviewers report smooth play on mid-range hardware, and some found fixes: rolling back GPU drivers (one friend's crashes were "fixed entirely by reverting NVidia drivers to version 610.88"), playing in fullscreen, closing overlays, enlarging the page file, or capping the frame rate. Reviewers also object to options they cannot change: ray tracing is always on, upscaling cannot be switched off, there is no frame generation, and graphics settings cannot be changed during a mission. One review listed "forced upscaling Forced RTX forced pause on lack of focus".
Flight sticks, remapping and mouse and keyboardMedium
Reviews that mention HOTAS or flight sticks make up 13% of the negative ones. Stick owners report that only licensed sticks are supported and that buttons and axes cannot be remapped, where Ace Combat 7 at least allowed an input file: "my 150$ VKB stick that worked perfectly fine with 7 is just a desk weight for 8". Reviewers also ask for analog rudder and stick dead zones. Some players work around it with Steam Input or vJoy, and a few report that their sticks work out of the box. Mouse and keyboard players describe controls that feel worse than Ace Combat 7 ("I have set max sensitivity for mouse on an incredibly high DPI and it still feels like I'm not turning at all"), and controller players want to swap sticks without Steam Input. Several defenders reply that Ace Combat has always been built for controllers.
Battle pass, loot boxes and premium planes in OnlineMedium
5% of reviews raise monetization, and 9% of negative reviews do. Players list a two-tier battle pass, loot boxes, premium currency and a shop of planes and skins, and some single out the ADFX-02 Morgan, which they say comes with the paid pass ("The Morgan is extremely dominant over the starter planes"). Others call it pay-to-win and complain that matchmaking puts new players in starter jets against upgraded aircraft. The reviewer who called the Morgan dominant also felt "the grind seems entirely manageable for anyone who isn't going to shell out cash". Reviewers describe the shop as part of the online mode only.
Online blocked on Linux and Steam Deck, plus anti-cheat and DRMMedium
3% of reviews mention Linux, Proton or Steam Deck, and they make up 10% of negative reviews. Players report that the single-player campaign often runs under Proton but that Easy Anti-Cheat blocks the online mode with error ST-3200003, and they say they only discover this after reaching the lobby: "Banning Linux players from Online without even being upfront about it is a lame move." Separately, some reviews object to Easy Anti-Cheat and Denuvo, which reviewers say also run in the offline campaign, and some blame them for stutter or crashes.
Missing PC options: field of view and cameraLow
Reviewers who fly from the cockpit call the field of view too narrow ("55 fov is unacceptable in 2026."), and some say it makes them feel sick. Others say the third-person camera puts the plane over a large part of the screen. Both groups ask for an FOV slider and a farther chase camera.
Price and install sizeLow
Some reviewers feel the deluxe price was too high for a launch with these problems, and others recommend waiting for a sale or patches. The install size of roughly 130 to 150 GB also comes up, mostly alongside the Ace Combat Zero complaint: "I shouldn't have to install a 150 GB game to play a 3 GB game for the PS2."
A smaller aircraft rosterLow
A few fans miss favourite jets such as the YF-23 and Su-37, and point to aircraft that appear in the story but cannot be flown: "a helicopter carrier that has harriers on board joins your fleet, you cant fly a harrier..."
3. The player conversation
Long-time fans fill the reviews with radio-line quotes ("Yo buddy, you still alive?"), "we are so back" and "peak". Longer positive reviews tend to cover the campaign, the music and the squad. Technical trouble runs through the negative side, and some negative reviewers say crashes stopped them in the first mission or the opening cutscenes. Flight stick owners, Linux and Steam Deck players, and people who pre-ordered for Ace Combat Zero form smaller groups with their own complaints. Some positive reviewers push back, calling these complaints review bombing over things that have nothing to do with the game. Players who finished the campaign or moved on to Online raise different issues: the ending, difficulty spikes, the battle pass, the Morgan and lost match rewards.
Reviews got more positive across the first nine days. They dipped on 2 October to 72% positive, with a new wave of crash reports, and then rose each day to 91% on 6 October.
4. What the developers could do
- Fix the crashes and the memory leak. The UE-Live "Error 01" crashes, most often during cutscenes, and RAM use that climbs past 20 GB belong to the performance and stability problems raised in 58% of negative reviews.
- Make cutscenes and settings easier on PC hardware. Reviewers want a non-ray-traced lighting mode, a way to turn off upscaling, frame generation, graphics changes during missions, and cutscenes that run as well as the missions do.
- Add full input remapping and generic flight stick support. Stick owners ask for at least the input file Ace Combat 7 offered, plus analog rudder, dead zones and better mouse and keyboard response.
- Stop online matches from losing rewards and banning crashed players. Online reviewers describe end-of-match disconnects that wipe rewards, lobbies that disband when one player drops, and 24-hour leaver bans after a crash.
- Enable Easy Anti-Cheat for Linux and Steam Deck, or say clearly that online is unavailable there. 10% of negative reviews mention Linux or Steam Deck, and those players object to finding out only once they reach the online lobby.
- Release Ace Combat Zero as its own install with achievements and cloud saves. Reviewers ask for it to be playable without the full Ace Combat 8 install and with its own achievements, which some say console players get.
- Keep paid planes from deciding Online matches. Players single out the Morgan in the paid pass and ask for matchmaking that keeps starter jets away from upgraded aircraft.
- Add an FOV slider and let players switch off tutorial pop-ups and cutscene prompts. Cockpit players report motion sickness from the narrow view, and others want to skip the prompts to shake hands and the tutorials they already declined.
