Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve
Review
A high-tech, adrenaline-filled fighter jet in an aging system.
by Jordan Helsley
reviewed on PC
Someone Else's Legend
Ace Combat 8 provides another twist on the war tale. The titular "Wings of Theve" is both the primary squadron of the Federation of Central Usea and its namesake, legendary ace pilot/hero to his nation (Theve) whose status has been inflated even further by AI-assisted wartime propaganda on social media. This pilot goes by the callsign 'Rex' to his squadron, and genuinely has their respect due to his prowess. You are not really that guy. You are Rex's Weapons Systems Operator covertly promoted to the position of ace fighter pilot (despite WSOs often being lightly trained in piloting in the real world) when Rex meets his untimely fate. All further characterization of Rex comes from his disembodied voice in your head, but because your actual pilot is completely silent, his disillusioned musings might as well be your own. You might as well be the one contemplating flying off into the sunset for good. It becomes difficult to separate Rex from the actual player character, made worse by the fact that your allies mostly call you by his name, too. One character, however, refuses to do so as an allusion to the fact that you may have been handed that identity, but you've still got to earn it. She calls you Ray, because it 'sounds like Rex,' which ends up being a subtle story thread among the larger narrative, only hampered by the fact that other characters will occasionally use whichever name in a given moment, cheapening the moments that feel intentional.
There's a very real disconnect in how Ace Combat 8 attempts to tell its story, and how that story actually manifests. All cutscenes are fully first-person this time around, in an attempt to further ground the 'war is messed up' narrative, complete with button prompts (quick-time events without any sort of timing) to make you feel like you're actually there, deciding to shake this person's hand. Possibly inspired by the 'pack in' game (Ace Combat Zero, which is listed as the pre-order bonus, and is a port, not a remaster/remake) there are also opportunities to provide yes or no answers to radio messages throughout the missions, to give the sense that you've got control over anything in this war machine. You don't. A handful of times a "should we help them" question has an actual side objective on the line, but far more often the game continues based on whatever it wanted to hear. Answering "no" to your commanding officer's request results in a "Rex!?!" from your allies, before they immediately explain how to accomplish that objective. There are no stakes to these dialogue moments, so they end up being yet another thing to pay attention to while twirling through the sky trying not to get shot down. Things like genuine character and story dialogue from both friendly and enemies fighters, but also some incredible music. The theme of music runs through the game, including the culture of the friendly military forces. One fighter squadron was literally a band, before they got conscripted for the war. This dynamic music adds another layer to the combat missions, and infuses elements of the world seamlessly to create some playlist-worthy tracks. Answering inconsequential yes or no questions takes the furthest of back seats. As such, most of my answers were 'silence' because I didn't pick a response in time, and I quickly learned it didn't matter anyway.
The story of Theve would have been better without these gimmicks, but it's still pretty good. There are genuine character moments on both sides of the battle, and some seriously fun set pieces to get through among the game's more-than-two-dozen missions as you truly become this mythical pilot and nation savior. Those 'choices' and button prompts (which are the most out of place, Xbox 360-looking icons they could possibly be) are one aspect that really make the game feel dated, like they're searching for some way to let the player interact at every turn, instead of letting the story play out, and letting the player focus on some aerial combat.
A Jet for Every Job
Delightfully, the aircraft selection for combat is high quality. Ace Combat 8 isn't trying to change the formula too much on that front, and delivers light-simulation, mostly-arcade flying superbly. You're still sortieing into airspaces with a couple hundred missiles, unlimited machine gun ammo, and a special weapon or two. While doing so, you're picking from four classes of jet (essentially: support, air, ground, hybrid) which consist of mostly-real-world models enthusiasts know and love. Each jet has a selection of three possible special weapons, so there's a balance between what would be best for the mission and what is the most fun to fly that kept me cycling to a new jet almost every mission as I earned enough currency to unlock new ones, new weapons, and new upgrade parts in the Aircraft Tree.
While the act of unlocking and equipping those upgrades was fulfilling, traversing the Aircraft Tree is a tiring experience. All the items are spaced out enough to make quickly comparing the stats of two jets annoying, it's just sluggish enough to make moving from the beginning to the end a chore, and you can't zoom out far enough to get a good look at which of these branches leads to this particular unlock without tediously scrolling backwards. It feels like a relic from another time, that didn't get the refinement necessary for an integral part of the campaign. In a way it matches its 'Gran Turismo for jets' vibe, down to having those clunky menus.
Delivered Dogfights
That said, it feels good to soar through the air. The environments take on a character of their own primarily through some seriously impressive clouds. They are layered in the atmosphere, look and feel realistic, and come with gameplay mechanics like ice build up, target locking impact, and of course visual obscurity. I spent a significant amount of time in the game's Free Flight mode just puttering around these spaces, checking out the weather technology that can quickly take a back seat when the enemies appear.
Fighting those enemies is as satisfying as ever, too. There's a few difficulty options to play with, but the middle ground provided the right amount of skill checks and satisfying kills. Often the run-of-the-mill aerial enemies aren't too much trouble. You get into the groove of swinging around behind and commanding your squad to help you in one of a few ways. The game naturally invites you to take things to the next level, though. Sweeping low for runs on ground targets between buildings, trying to gun down aerial targets head-on, and everything in between. Because the real challenges are paced out, you're given plenty of time to learn skill moves on-the-fly. Things like aerial manoeuvres out of stalls and perfecting the game's handbrake-style quick turn (which can turn an A-10 into a dogfighting menace). Those lessons come in handy when up against the more challenging aerial foes, which can feel downright impossible to kill in a good way. Long, drawn-out dog fights, with dozens of 'Fox 2!' missile calls, unfold in the sky, through the clouds, as they and you twist and twirl through the air, simultaneously attacking and defending. Securing those kills is so satisfying because of their apparent skill level, but it also seems like the game is fudging those experiences a bit, taking away their defensive prowess at just the right moment to remind you that you are dangerous. Still, I made use of the Free Mission select a few times just to see if I could handle them better, and as an excuse to test my abilities. Whipping these jets around feels as incredible as it looks, especially in missions where the odds seem overwhelming, leading to some seriously satisfying victory replays.
Blast From The Past
When it comes to watching (and/or editing) those replays, though, it's another case of a solved problem undone. I can forgive the lack of a free camera, which takes away the ability to truly frame up shots because all usable camera angles are centered on your aircraft, but what's more egregious is the lack of a rewind. In one mission, I had the innocuous desire to see if one of my kills crashed into another target to take it out, or if a squad mate had delivered the blow, but I couldn't manage to get that confirmation. The replays have markers at certain points in the mission which can be rewound to, but when I passed the moment by one or two seconds, I had to go back several minutes to get another shot at it. I admit, it sounds so unimportant that it barely bears mentioning, but in a game that's so "look how cool this is," and autoplays those replays after every mission, it's a large missed opportunity in 2026.
Subsequent Sorties
While it's nothing but theoretical at this point, the endgame of Ace Combat 8 truly rests in its multiplayer offering. I didn't get a chance to truly dig in with it, but some details are there. For the modes, there are both PvP and, more interesting for me, PvE co-op modes. Those co-operative modes primarily centre around two teams competing side-by-side in high-score competitions. The prospects there are exciting, but I need to wait until the servers are live to get a complete grasp of the situation. Where it already falters a little is the disconnect from the campaign. None of the unlocks accrued over whatever number of single-player hours transfer into the multiplayer mode at all. No jets, no cosmetics, nothing. If you're like me and enjoy using the earned items versus paying into the shop, we're out of luck. It will surely be nothing to the majority of players, and the co-op missions might make up the difference, but it's those little annoyances that stuck with me, perhaps made worse by the fact that I couldn't see what the shop was offering, or how playtime unlocks actually work. Instead I was left running around their social space and viewing the experience at a distance. Still, it has promise. This will hit with a vanishingly-small number of people, but I got shades of Exoprimal in how they're treating the online portion. Some sort of interwoven story, emergency missions that pop up occasionally, and, of course, that PvE backbone.
Additional, non-PvP missions on offer in multiplayer aren't the only thing driving me back to Ace Combat 8, though. Unlocking the rest of the Aircraft Tree aside, beating the campaign unlocks the opportunity for some new tools to play with, and some quality-of-life features that maybe shouldn't have been locked up to begin with. In particular, I found it disappointing that aircraft skins, which are regularly unlocked through mission completions, are locked behind completion of the final mission. Nevertheless, those new items and features give successive trips around those battlefields just enough extra to make it enticing, on top of turning the difficulty up and the joy of combat itself. There's also the opportunity to see a few of those 'yes' side objectives, I suppose.
(Re)move Before Flight
The game was very performant for me. Through my first playthrough the experience was buttery smooth. The opening shader compilation went well, and didn't pop up on successive loads of the game. Most of my playtime was using a Steam Controller, but no matter how I played it felt great. Even on my old Thrustmaster HOTAS X, but that path had a simple controller layout graphic, and no ability to re-bind buttons. Graphics and performance never faltered, and that was almost the end of it, but it does require a word of caution for what came after. To make room for the next thing, I moved all 140 GB (yeah...) of Ace Combat 8 over to another drive, which was accidentally an HDD, and that was rough. That move was clearly the cause of a 30-minute-plus launch time, but it could have been a coincidence that shaders also compiled again every time, taking up roughly half of that time. If that's your only option in these times of strained SSD supplies: beware. It should also be noted that I wasn't able to get the game to function on Steam Deck. It felt less like an issue with Easy Anti-Cheat because the game launched initially, but broken is broken.
Cleared for Landing
The elements tangential to the combat are more disappointing than bad, but do prevent Ace Combat 8 from being a refined package. The fact that so much of that friction fades away when you're in the cockpit in the sky is important though. It's the connective tissue, and it's really strong. Even the story could have taken a back seat, but instead it's impactful, well-acted, and pretty well written as well. While the jury is still out on the multiplayer offering (the "largest of the series"), 36 hours with the campaign, and a desire for more, tell me that there's more than enough here to satisfy someone looking for the thrill of jet-based combat, minus the free-to-play trappings of some other games. Flying, and dogfighting, feels incredible. It delivers highly-curated, purposefully disorienting dances among the clouds set to a badass soundtrack that are equal parts exhilarating and tense. You get to "do some of that pilot stuff," and that’s all it really needs.
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8.5
fun score
Pros
Thrilling dogfights in gorgeous spaces set to dynamic music in the midst of a highly-personal war story. Plenty of content for the single-player experience. Multiplayer modes show promise.
Cons
Awkward menu interactions, gimmicky cutscene and dialogue input triggers, and the finer details of the multiplayer experience remain a mystery.
