Ace Combat 8 Review, Gameplay Impressions, Videos and Top Features

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve from developer Bandai Namco Aces is much more than meets the eye. 

On first pass, it's a combat flight simulation. The ninth main game in the storied series, Ace Combat 8 is a follow-up to Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown from 2019. Simple enough. 

But Ace Combat 8 is so much more. It's a summer blockbuster movie with unexpected story depth, some JRPG goodness and an overall immersive experience that reaches far, far beyond its face-value niche. 

Tack on serious multiplayer depth for good measure, and Ace Combat 8 certainly boasts the potential to be one of the year's sleeper hits. 

Graphics and Gameplay

As a combat flight arcade-sim hybrid, much of Ace Combat 8's presentation is about sheer draw distances and letting players loose. 

Mission accomplished here. There's a feat of immersion happening here, with Ace Combat 8 boasting expansive geography below the player. Cities scale impressively well the closer one gets to the ground and the draw distances are stunning.  

Usually, a game's skybox is just really fancy window dressing to offer a sense of immersion and scale. Here, though, it's a playground to maneuver and battle, with almost shocking lighting and fog effects. Dynamic weather really brings it all together, with cloud cover serving as literal cover, among the many examples of these million-dollar war machines still relying on nature to grab an advantage. 

Talk about immersive, too. The bombastic, expected sound design is here. But so are the fun little wrinkles, like enemy pilots proudly playing their hunting song over the open channels. 

It's important to stress just how critical sound design is in a game like this, too. Players stuck in aircraft need that emotion conveyed over the airwaves. Here, there's stunning voice acting and overall decisions over the radio in the form of rallying cries, taunting from enemies, or even hearing those a player was supposed to defend perish. 

North of 30 aircraft gets split into four categories and each controls in a pretty unique way. There's a simple control scheme that gives the game big pick-up-and-play potential, too. 

Ace Combat 8 leans a little more modern than its predecessors by permitting players to damage enemies anywhere, rather than restricting them to only doing damage to weak points.

Pre-fight loadout management is a big deal, too. Beyond just picking an aircraft, details like weapons, parts and punchable stuff impact in-mission details like ammo count, special weapons, aircraft performance, etc. 

Sheer mission variety is a boon too. We're talking standard protection missions, hitting land targets, fighting battleships, finding hidden airshapes in cloud cover, it goes on and on. Little wrinkles on top of that, like a jammed radar, varying weather and others, just make it all the better. 

It's all great fun when put together. And it's not what casual players might expect. It's not just "shoot the red-boxed enemies until mission win" at all. A game in this space requires serious mission-by-mission care in terms of design and pacing and frankly, lots of video games in any genre could learn a thing or two from the master class put on here. 

Story and More

Set in the fictional universe of Strangereal, the player's silent protagonist gets shot down, saved and inherits a rather fictional mythical status as a beacon of hope that keeps morale high. 

The backdrop is, understandably, war: The Republic of Sotoa invades the Federation of Central Usea for reasons and the narrative loops in all sorts of fun warfare things, from airships to mech-looking things and orbital strikes, to name a few. 

That's simplifying things, of course. It's truly a gripping tale that, at least a little bit ironically, goes out of its way to be pretty anti-war in its messaging. Think, the goofy-serious combo of a Metal Gear game. Jan Cope is the mouthpiece for this. Get it, cope? Maybe unintentional, but funny. 

What happens matters, too, as non-player characters can die via the actions of the player. All told, especially as the campaign nears its ending arc, it's one of the actually more surprising, enjoyable and memorable stories of the entire year. Little non-combat moments like getting to know crewmates in the first-person certainly help. 

On the multiplayer front, Ace Combat 8 probably gets a little more innovative and modern than some might expect. There are 100-player lobbies to hang out in via a customized pilot avatar. 

There are also, for better or worse, loot crates and a battle pass with free and paid tiers. 

Actual gameplay comes down to co-op or PvP. The former involves a squad of up to four players joining forces to tackle objectives. Highest score amongst the squads is the winner. 

On the competitive side, the PvP permits additional points for destroying other players. There's an added intensity on top of the whole element of competitive PvP in the first place by some smart score multipliers for, well, PvP'ing via destroying players. 

Ace Combat 8 also tacks on limited modes and events to keep players coming back. Fun little wrinkles like going against elite AI enemies are some of the first offerings, and it's going to be pretty interesting to see what else pops up during the game's lifecycle. 

Overall, the game runs well even with the impressive draw distances and particle effects, etc. There's also a strong suite of options, including two control options that offer simplified or expert (using shoulder buttons for fine details like pitch). 

Conclusion

Who had Ace Combat 8 delivering the best story mode of 2026? Go play the lottery. 

It's a testament to the almost surreal audio design in the form of immersive radio work. But it's also a nod to the superb design decisions like out-of-cockpit moments with well-thought-out characters and an anime-manga style that doesn't take itself too seriously. 

Would-be players, though, should take Ace Combat 8 very seriously. It's much more than it seems, tells a gripping tale, offers some unforgettable gameplay moments and is a feat of mission design with a long-term replayability factor. 

Shock value has nothing to do with it, either: It doesn't get much more Game of the Year material than Ace Combat 8.