Game EXP: ACE COMBAT 8: Wings of Theve (PC)

 

ACE COMBAT 8: Wings of Theve
Systems: Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox S/X
Release Date: October 1, 2026
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Developer: Bandai Namco Aces Inc.
Time Spent: 34 Hours 42 Minutes
Flight Time: 10 Hours 2 Minutes
Partial Playlist on YouTube

If ACE COMBAT 7: Skies Unknown felt like a return to what I loved about the series, ACE COMBAT 8: Wings of Theve took everything that made AC7 fun, ramped up the excitement, brought in a rock opera company, and hired a boxer to deliver multiple emotional gut punches.  I've also read/heard people compare it to Gundam with fighter jets, but I have no experience with that franchise, so I can't comment on their similarities.  Before we get into the weeds here, I highly recommend reading my article about my laptop setup and how it doesn't meet the minimum requirements to even play ACE COMBAT 8, and with the exception of a couple of missions, it's surprisingly still playable at 18-26 fps.

I don't know if I would call ACE COMBAT 8 a flawless ACE COMBAT game, but I can't honestly think of anything about the game that made me not enjoy my time playing compared to other aspects and mechanics from previous games in the series.  I was never inundated with UAVs like in AC7.  There wasn't a separate dogfight mechanic like in ACE COMBAT: Assault Horizon.  The story took place in the fictionalized Strangereal, unlike AC: AH and ACE COMBAT: Joint Assault, where the story takes place in the real world with fictionalized events.  The one aspect I keep hoping Project Aces brings back is the branching paths in ACE COMBAT X: Skies of Deception, which offered three different paths to reach the end of the game.  But what AC8 does have over all of the other AC games I've played is 30 missions, and they amazingly never overstay their welcome.

From my limited experience playing ACE COMBAT games (I've played six out of 18 titles), one of the biggest additions in this game to the series was the inclusion of first-person perspective scenes where you can interact with other characters to a very limited extent.  Interactions are reduced to looking around and opting to "Press A" when indicated.  When I first heard that there were going to be sections of the game where you play in first person aboard the aircraft carrier, I was worried that this was going to deviate too much from the whole air combat simulator and be akin to running around Garrek Mach in Fire Emblem: Three Houses in between battles.  For me, the purpose of these scenes, rather than just watching a cutscene, meant that I felt more in control of what I wanted my character to be part of, although I never noticed characters calling me out for staring at the ceiling or my feet.  

What I enjoyed about these scenes was that by the end of the game, I knew my fellow aircrew more than I had in previous ACE COMBAT games I've played, and this was one of the most important parts of the game for me.  Getting to know who your aircrew were was integral to having an emotional investment in not just the overarching story, but each of their own personal arcs as well, not just in the face-to-face interactions on the carrier, but also from their talking over the radio during missions.  Ever since the "Search for the Nonnah" mission in Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, I've loved hearing the chatter from the other pilots during the mission, and I've wished that it would continue beyond the first minute.  This game takes radio chatter to the extreme, as you can hear communications from not only your fellow aircrew, but pilots from other squadrons, ground forces, as well as enemy communications.  I've read some criticism that it's too much noise during missions, but it's something that I really enjoyed hearing that I wasn't the only person fighting in these missions and that other characters were having their own experiences as well.  I wasn't a one-man army.

I think one of my favorite characters from the story was Tasha.  She was an acrobatic pilot before the events of the war, and was already on the carrier with her father filming a promotional video when Sotoa attacked Usea.  She volunteered to join up with Joker Flight, flying with the original Wings of Theve (a title your character was forced into after the first namesake was shot down while you were his copilot) on passive and defensive missions.  Before your character, Rex, joined Joker Flight, the squadron had never been an aggressive force.  During the first eight missions, Tasha primarily acts as a lure to bandits, using her acrobatic skills to outmaneuver them while drawing them towards you to shoot down.  She is an extremely talkative character (more so than your primary wingman, Baxter) but also functions as a way for other characters to give exposition since she's not a Usean native; she and her father are from Yukotobania, a country northeast of Sotoa, on the neighboring continent.  

It isn't until a mission where her wingman, Coster, becomes overwhelmed by grief that she finds herself having to fire missiles for the first time to protect him.  That act does not go unnoticed by your wingman, Baxter, and you see direct and indirect ways he tries to comfort/console her when other crewmembers want to find ways to congratulate her.  I really appreciated that after that mission, Tasha was initially uneasy about arming missiles, had to learn a new way to fly, and that it never came easy to her through the rest of the game.  She does engage in air-to-air combat after that, but she doesn't become The Red Baron or excited at the prospect of getting to shoot down bandits.  So after the final mission, when she asks you if the war is over and the fighting is done, and when you reply "Yes," she splits off from the group to briefly pull one of her stunt-flying maneuvers; there's an amazing shot of her plane against a yellow sky, finally free from the horrors of the Sotoan - Usean War.

I could probably write a dedicated article about so many of the other characters in this game.  Baxter, aka Professor, your wingman who acts like a brother and father figure to various crew members.  Jan Cope, the first Wings of Theve, whose conscious voice-over (and a fixation with numbers only during the first third of the missions) was reminiscent of B.J. Blazkowitz in Wolfenstein: The New Order.  Kate Evans, aka Little Bee, is the leader of Queen Flight, and while she is initially hard on Rex, she comes across more as an overprotective older sister to nearly every member of the FCU.  XO, Jessica Pike, is supportive of the decision to "promote" Rex while also being a realist and optimist about their position during the war.  Carmille Tewy, a former Sotoan pilot who, despite the handful of scenes she's in, offers a fair amount of nuance to her history and the folklore of Sotoa.  Dealer, your voice from command relaying mission information gives an amazing vocal performance both in times of excitement and despair.

ACE COMBAT 8 is one of those games that I would love to keep on my laptop, to pull up and play every now and then. With 30 missions to choose from, where very few of them are frustrating to play because you're going up against beyond nimble bandits, there are plenty of fun and exciting options.  From escort missions that are actually fun (with the exception of one that has you flying all over the map), to raids where you have to rack up a certain score before the end of the mission, to air-to-air superiority combat fights.  And very few of those missions have any UAVs (thank Christ).  I'm not holding my breath for a release on the Switch 2, but I guarantee that I'll be picking up a copy if that day ever comes.*

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Instrumental

P.S.  I got so caught up talking about the different story aspects of the game, I didn't find a place to talk a bit about one of the things that made me chuckle about playing this game on my laptop.  When playing at home, I would use a wired Xbox Series S/X controller, although the pads are wearing out on the trigger buttons.  When I would play at the office, I would use my old wired Xbox 360 controller, which ran great 98% of the time.  There were a couple of times the controller disconnected, but the game would immediately pause, letting me know that the controller was not detected.  So here I am, playing one of the more hardware-intensive games on my subpar laptop, with a 14-year-old controller from two console generations ago.

*I know ACE COMBAT 7 was released on the Switch five years after its initial release, so maybe 2031?