Since its debut in 1995 with Air Combat, which was released for the original PlayStation, the Ace Combat franchise, as it has been renamed, has established itself as one of gaming’s premiere arcade-style flight-simulation series. The most recent title, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, which came out in 2019, successfully brought the series to modern platforms after a 12-year period with no mainline titles, selling a franchise record of more than 7 million copies in the process.
Announced at The Game Awards 2025, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve attempts to build on the success of its predecessor and celebrate the 30th anniversary of the franchise by delivering a sprawling and cinematic campaign mode, stunning Unreal Engine 5 visuals and the largest multiplayer mode ever included in an Ace Combat game. Well, after spending around 32 hours tackling the game’s many missions and taking to the skies together with fellow members of the press and content creators in a dedicated online session, I’m pleased that Wings of Theve is a great action game and even though it doesn’t quite achieve everything it sets out to do, it’s one of the best entries in the series—falling short only to Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War and Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, the former of which is included as a pre-order bonus.
“Significantly more joy is to be found when playing the campaign missions themselves, as they are both assembled with care and very varied.”
From the marketing materials released, which include a live-action prelude series, it was clear that the story told, in the longest campaign mode featured in an Ace Combat yet, would take centre stage. In said story, then, the protagonist, Rex, becomes the leader of the so-called Joker Flight: a four-member flight squad under the control of a fictional major country named the Federation of Central Usea, which has Theve as its capital. In a tribute to the Ghost of Kyiv—which is the nickname of a mythical flying ace who is said to have shot down six Russian planes during the real-life Kyiv offensive on February 24th, 2022—the protagonist inherits the legendary call sign of the “Wings of Theve,” which also serves as the subtitle of the game. As the Wings of Theve, throughout the 30 sorties that make up the campaign, Rex and the wingmen that make up Joker Flight are employed to take down the invading forces of Sotoa—a fictional nation to the east of Central Usea, which begins to experience the devastating effects of climate change.
Yet, despite however enticing this premise is and despite the high level of production throughout and immersive first-person cutscenes, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve fails at weaving a narrative that is gripping and interesting. Instead, the dialogue is cumbersome and perhaps even badly translated, and the moment-to-moment story events are impenetrable and incoherent. By the end of the campaign, I was left confused as to what the story was all about. Furthermore, the moments and twists which could have otherwise been engaging and the praise-worthy performances by an English voice-over cast, which includes Troy Baker, were completely lost on me for this reason. Sadly, for as much time as Wings of Theve spends on its story and characters, nothing and no one is even remotely memorable.
Significantly more joy is to be found when playing the campaign missions themselves, as they are both assembled with care and very varied. For example, whereas some missions do indeed require players to simply take down all of the enemies present in a given area, other sorties in Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve require players to identify disguised armed ships, fly low in order to avoid radars, or escort friendly planes on the way back to base. These end goals tend to get more repetitive as the campaign goes on, definitely, but it’s a triumph that the situations I found myself dogfighting my way out of were largely unique and engrossing.
Adding to the variety of the missions is the fact that all of the 30+ aircraft, whether they are real-world fighters from around the world or fictional ones exclusive to the game, are divided into four total types and thus serve different purposes. In my case, whereas I almost always preferred a “multi-role” plane, specific encounters called for a different plane and/or special weapon entirely. To illustrate my point, during missions in which the aim was to provide air support to the units on land, I found it significantly easier to swap to an “attacker” plane armed with bombs as the special weapons. The types of planes and special weapons are not mutually exclusive either, so sorting out which kind of plane gets what sort of weapons to fly out with becomes an exciting puzzle in itself.
And if that level of customization wasn’t enough, completing missions in Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve grants in-game currency according to the rank earned by the amount of enemies defeated, the time spent, whether or not checkpoints have been used, and more such criteria. The currency can then be used to unlock more fighters and parts in what the game calls the “Aircraft Tree.” From what I could tell, every unlockable part can be fitted onto each of the available aircraft, the only real limitation being the part slots allocated to the respective plane, which can vary. That being said, fitting a plane with new parts won’t change its role entirely, so they’re not that transformative. Rather, they are used to improve stats such as acceleration, top speed, and more. One other thing to mention here is that the game also allows for robust visual customization. However, changing the emblems or skins of any of the planes is only available after the campaign has concluded and/or during online play.
Now, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve’s online play comes in the form of a separate experience altogether called Ace Combat Online. As such, in Ace Combat Online, players will start as a mercenary pilot stationed at an air force base, with the option of engaging in limited-time events such as 4v4 PVP scrambles or emergency sorties in which eight players will band together to take on iconic “colossal weapons” from throughout the entire franchise. As aforementioned, though, I didn’t get to sink my teeth into this too much, but what I played in a brief multiplayer session was nothing short of awesome. Once the servers are up and running for longer than just a few hours, I’ll be eager to get back and take to the skies alongside fellow fighters.
Nevertheless, for how exciting preparing for each sortie is and how exciting the multiplayer seems like it will be, nothing beats actually taking flight by way of the exhilarating gameplay behind Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve. Piloting the plane is absolutely the bread and butter of a game like this, and this aspect is absolutely nailed here. From the moment I first went up in the air, each dogfight—regardless of plane, scenario, or whether I was making use of the first-person or third-person camera—has been absolutely absorbing. I also appreciated that the mechanic of issuing commands to wingmen, as introduced in Ace Combat 5, made a return, especially since the friendly AI was genuinely very competent and efficient.
“Nevertheless, for how exciting preparing for each sortie is and how exciting the multiplayer seems like it will be, nothing beats actually taking flight by way of the exhilarating gameplay behind Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve.”
In terms of the enemy AI, I opted for the elite difficulty (the second hardest out of four total modes), which proved to be just right for me since, even though I have played all of the Ace Combat games in the past, I’m still far from an ace pilot. I also opted for using the expert controls instead of the novice ones—the former giving me full control of the roll and pitch of the plane in favor of a more simplified, arcade-like approach. In any case, the gameplay is as good as it is accessible, so there are options aplenty to accommodate most players, regardless of skill level and prior knowledge of the series.
I was likewise very impressed by Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve’s general presentation. From the way the game looks to the way it sounds, everything in this aspect is of superlative quality. It should come as no surprise, in this case, that it absolutely shows that the team, as they say, took time to record real jet engines and used new technology to render more reactive weather environments. I found the game’s performance on my PC (AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D, paired with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and 32 GB of RAM) to be exemplary as well, with no bugs, glitches, or hitches whatsoever. I have not personally tried it on the Steam Deck or the Steam Machine, but the minimum requirements make it clear that, while it will probably run pretty decently on the Machine, it will probably not be playable at all on the Steam Deck.
All in all, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is a great continuation of the formula re-established by its direct predecessor: Skies Unknown. The game is absolutely gorgeous and exhilarating to play; however it is unfortunate that the story conjures up nothing worth the time it is asking of the player. Here’s hoping an eventual Ace Combat 9 turns a whatever story into an exciting one and, by extension, a great achievement into a monumental one.
