Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is the exact kind of high-altitude fantasy fans want from this series, as they watch the clouds part and the sunlight catch the edge of a stunningly rendered fighter jet. It’s a fast-moving, explosive spectacle. But it’s more than flashy dogfights thanks to the developer‘s slightly different approach this time around. Instead of simply strapping players into the cockpit to shoot down endless bogeys, Ace Combat 8 leans heavily into a surprisingly deep narrative. It balances wild arcade dogfighting and genuine emotional weight across the campaign’s thirty missions, and it never runs out of ways to keep the tension at a breaking point.
The story drops players back into Strangereal. This is the series’ signature alternative Earth, and it is a place hyper obsessed with fighter planes and superweapons. The main focus is on a conflict between the Federation of Central Usea, known as the FCU, and the invading forces of Sotoa. Sotoa did not just attack for the hell of it; their lands are dying. Rapid industrialization ruined their agriculture, and they desperately need fertile soil to survive. They completely occupy the FCU, leaving the defending forces hanging on by a thread. Players take on the role of an unnamed, silent pilot flying for a crew called Joker Squadron. The player becomes the target of the military’s decision to continue the illusion of its fabricated hero, Wings of Theve, to boost morale across the continent. It acts as a misinformation campaign, working similarly to the real-world rumors of the Ghost of Kyiv. As “Rex” steps into this mythical role, he quickly turns the fictitious legend into a terrifying reality for Sotoa.
Jan “Rex” Cope was the original Wings of Theve, but he is killed in action by the nefarious Shadow 22, leaving his spirit as an inner monologue for our lead man. If you’ve played Cyberpunk 2077, you’ll get Johnny Silverhand-lite vibes from this character dynamic. Cope spends the game waxing poetic about the meaning of war, his memories, and a soldier’s place on the battlefield. This adds a dark, brooding atmosphere to the whole experience, one that reflects on corporations benefiting from a conflict-affected economy and the power of social media propaganda.
The rest of Joker Squadron includes characters like Tasha and Baxter. They are extremely likable, but they pull heavily from long-standing tropes. Tasha will casually joke around and ask Coster to play songs on the radio while Rex is busy blowing dozens of enemies out of the sky. This creates some tonal whiplash. The game wants to tell a gritty story about the horrors of war, but then the wingmates start throwing out goofy grunts and treating the blood-soaked battlefield like a playground.
Top Fun
The game opens with a ton of cutscenes. It takes considerable time to get through the initial cinematics before the first real mission starts. When the game shifts to interactive moments, players are sometimes locked into semi-cutscenes where they can move the camera. These segments often end with abrupt fades to black at random moments. But when the cutscenes work, they really work. Ace Combat 8 (unsurprisingly) borrows heavily from Top Gun, using intense pilot face-cam shots and ffirst-person views that make the characters feel lifelike. Enemy incursions even happen during routine landings and refuelings to keep players on edge. Even the villains are given plenty of screen time. The main antagonists are an elite ace group called the Shadows, who show up with archetypical villain energy.
Once the game actually lets players take control, the combat absolutely shines. Ace Combat 8 offers a few different ways to fly. Newcomers can use a simple arcade control scheme to steer by just pushing left or right, whereas veterans can swap to realistic controls. The latter requires rolling the plane vertically to execute sharp turns. Regardless of the control scheme used, it always feels immensely rewarding to pull off a zero-G turn to dodge a swarm of incoming missiles. And thankfully, planes no longer instantly explode if they clip a tree branch. Players can scrape against surfaces and take a bit of damage instead of failing the mission immediately. The latest iteration also introduces environmental destruction. Stray missiles and falling debris can cause buildings to crumble, setting off chain reactions that look stunning from above.
The hangar offers a vast selection of aircraft. Points earned from mission grades are spent to unlock new jets, and there are dozens of real-world planes from which to choose. The lineup includes F-22 Raptors, F-15s, F-16s, MiGs, Sukhois, Mirage 2000s, Eurofighters, and Rafales. Two special weapons can be equipped per plane, mixing unguided bombs, rockets, and support tools. This loadout system is crucial because the missions demand adaptation. And that is even more important when boss showdowns arise; these notorious pilots often forgo the real-world models in favor of fictional, over-the-top super planes to show they operate on a completely different level.
The mission variety keeps the thirty-level campaign feeling fresh from start to finish. Players will fly escort missions through crowded cities and conduct bombing runs. One standout mission tasks players with hunting down supersonic stealth planes by tracking their faint contrails in the sky. Another scenario involves destroying a massive land battleship equipped with a railgun. A different mission strips the player of their usual overpowered gear and forces them to flee in a weaker craft. The difficulty can spike a bit between these assignments, but they are no less enjoyable. During particularly chaotic dogfights, the screen often fills with visual clutter during and it can be hard to pick out priority targets amid the chaos. But that overwhelming feeling actually works in the game’s favor most of the time. It forces players to stay alert, pushing them to fly better and think faster. At the end of a mission, the game’s replay system always picks the best camera angles to make every kill look incredibly epic.
Acing Presentation
None of this would hit as hard without the game’s immaculate presentation. Built on Unreal Engine 5, Ace Combat 8 looks phenomenal. The lighting, water, and particle effects are top-tier. Even the clouds look amazing. The main city is impressively detailed, even from thousands of feet up in the air. The highly detailed first-person cockpit view is arguably the best way to experience the sheer speed of the game. The game runs fairly well despite being attached to the infamous Unreal Engine 5. Maintaining a smooth framerate at higher settings was relatively easy, barring some hitching and slight drops when the screen was brimming with explosions. Oh, and whose idea was it to omit an FOV slider? It’s 2026.
The soundtrack is equally as impressive as the visuals. The series has always delivered great music, and this entry mixes epic orchestral scores with heavy guitar riffs. The music also reacts to the action dynamically, kicking into high gear right as missiles lock on. An early highlight happens when the Shadows show up and an infectious group chant kicks in. It fills the battle with an overwhelming sense of dread, easily standing as one of the best musical moments in the franchise.
The biggest weak point is the multiplayer component, known as Ace Combat Online. It offers a handful of PvP and PvE modes, like standard team deathmatches and free-for-alls. But the lobby system forces players to sit around and wait without anything to do, and the whole mode feels a bit tacked on just to sell a seasonal battle pass. It is mostly skippable, and it hardly detracts from the massive single-player package. But if you were hopping for a multiplayer offering as fleshed out as the single player side, you’ll be left wanting more.
Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve Review Verdict
Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve: is a triumphant return for the series after several years. Any issues I could highlight quickly fade into the background once the jet engines fire up. The dogfights are fast, the music is epic, and the story actually has surprising depth. It is nearly everything we could want from a flight combat game. – Joshua
[Editor’s Note: Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve was reviewed on PC and a copy was provided to us for review purposes.]
