Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve

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Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve

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Aircraft

General Information

Developers

Bandai Namco Aces

Publishers

Bandai Namco Entertainment

Release Dates

2026

Gameplay Modes

• Campaign
• Unknown multiplayer mode(s)

Platforms

• PlayStation 5
• Xbox Series X|S
• Steam

Distribution

• Digital download

Websites

• Japanese website
• International website

Age Ratings

Main Credits

Producer

Manabu Shimomoto

Writer

Sunao Katabuchi

Composer

• Ryo Watanabe
• Mitsuhiro Kitadani

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is an upcoming arcade combat flight shooter game developed by Bandai Namco Aces and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. Set to release in 2026, Wings of Theve will be the 18th game in the Ace Combat franchise and the ninth game in the "Numbered Series" following Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. Wings of Theve will release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Microsoft Windows via Steam.

Wings of Theve's single-player campaign is set in 2029 in the Strangereal universe. Players take control of "Rex"—a pilot in the Federation of Central Usea (FCU)'s Navy, stationed aboard the carrier Endurance—during a conflict between the FCU and the Republic of Sotoa. Rex initially serves as the weapon systems officer for Jan "Rex" Cope, a supposedly-legendary FCU ace nicknamed the "Wings of Theve." Early in the conflict, the duo are shot down and Cope is killed in action, forcing the protagonist to take on his mantle to keep his legend alive. Rex becomes the leader of the Joker Squadron and joins the fight against the Sotoan invaders in earnest.

The game's campaign marks the first in-game appearances of both the FCU and Sotoa; the FCU was previously only mentioned in background material (most notably as the core of the Independent State Allied Forces, the protagonist force in Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies), while Sotoa had only appeared on the world map.

Wings of Theve will also feature cross-platform multiplayer, including some form of co-op, but no further details are available.

Plot

Synopsis

In the aftermath of the Lighthouse War, the Federation of Central Usea (FCU) has absorbed the other nations on the Usean continent as member states. The FCU's central government proves incapable of dealing with post-war reconstruction and accrues economic issues, causing unrest in its member states. Meanwhile, an FCU naval aviator named Jan "Rex" Cope becomes revered as the "Wings of Theve" (after the FCU's capital of Theve) through the influence of social media exaggerating his skills to legendary status.

In July 2029, Sotoa invades the ailing FCU. The player character, serving as the weapon systems officer for Cope's F/A-18F Super Hornet, is shot down over the open ocean during an engagement with Sotoan forces. Cope is unable to escape the sinking aircraft and drowns. The player character manages to retrieve his dog tags and swims to the surface before being rescued by the aircraft carrier Endurance. To maintain morale and keep the legend of the Wings of Theve alive, the player character is instructed to take Cope's callsign and nickname as their own, becoming the new "Rex." They are then put in command of the Joker Squadron and ordered to defend the FCU from the Sotoan invasion.

Characters

See also: Category:Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve characters

Rex will be the player character. Other members of Joker Squadron include Professor, Tasha, and Noise. The executive officer of the FCU Endurance is Jessica Pike. Other characters that will make an appearance include an unknown male officer and an unknown female officer.

Aircraft

Main article: Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve/Aircraft

The cover aircraft for Wings of Theve is the multirole F/A-18E Super Hornet. The F/A-18E was specifically chosen due to the story's focus on carrier operations, and was preferred over the F-35C Lightning II (which has not yet appeared in Wings of Theve) for its worldwide recognition as a carrier-based aircraft following the release of Top Gun: Maverick (which received a tie-in DLC for Skies Unknown that also added the F/A-18E to that game). In addition to the F/A-18E, Wings of Theve will also include the dual-seat F/A-18F variant and the legacy F/A-18C, marking the first Ace Combat appearance of the F/A-18C since Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War 20 years prior. Other playable aircraft will include an unidentified variant of the A-6E Intruder.

The Su-57 will return as an antagonist aircraft flown by the Shadow Squadron. An unidentified Flanker and an unidentified MiG also appeared in the announcement trailer. None of these aircraft have been confirmed as playable yet.

Other aircraft that appeared in the trailer, which are all suspected to be unplayable, include the E-2C Hawkeye, the UH-60 Black Hawk, the MQ-9 Reaper (making its Ace Combat debut), and an unidentified cargo plane.

Despite attempts to include Korean and Chinese fighter aircraft in the game, neither will make an appearance.

Cockpit gameplay of Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve; note the directional pad next to the radar and the blank line below the QAAM

Gameplay

During missions, gameplay appears to be similar to Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown where players take control of a fighter aircraft and destroy enemy units in a 3D environment. New additions to the gameplay include aircraft wreckage being able to damage other aircraft.

While unconfirmed, user interface elements in the announcement trailer suggest the return of Wingman Command (through a directional pad icon placed next to the radar screen) and the introduction of multiple Special Weapons during gameplay (through the appearance of multiple bombs and types of missiles on aircraft, as well as an additional dashed line in the player's ammo count).

In between missions, players will interact with their squadmates and other NPCs on the Endurance. Cinematic real-time cutscenes return for the first time since Ace Combat: Assault Horizon; like in Assault Horizon, players will be able to move their head to look around and press buttons in quick-time events to interact with other characters.

Development

Pre-reveal

The groundbreaking success of Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown—released in January 2019 to positive critical reception and the highest number of sales by a single title in the franchise's history (seven million copies as of January 2026)—led Project Aces to begin planning for the next Ace Combat game by September 2019. In an interview that month, brand director Kazutoki Kono and Skies Unknown producer Manabu Shimomoto discussed the need to advance the franchise "one step higher" and that "the needs of the players are becoming more diversified". In 2021, Shimomoto remarked that the project's start point "depends on who you ask"; he recalled the concept of the game being solidified around the time Skies Unknown sold 2 million copies (as announced in July 2020), while Masato Kanno stated that he was thinking about the next game after the release of the Season Pass missions (a process which concluded in November 2019). Kono remarked that he was thinking about the next game since the master copy of Skies Unknown was produced, noting that it was simply the nature of being a brand director.

During a livestream with Ace Combat development staff on August 18, 2021, Kono confirmed that a new Ace Combat game was officially in production, though he provided no other details or a title. He also announced that ILCA, who had previously supported Project Aces in the development of Skies Unknown, would be jointly developing the game with them. Kono explained that appeasing "many fans of all tastes" was not a simple task for the small team at Project Aces, so the additional manpower leveraged by ILCA would be more deeply involved in the upcoming title. This partnership later resulted in the formation of Bandai Namco Aces in 2022. In a 2023 promotional interview to fill open positions, screenshots were included of Bandai Namco Aces working in Unreal Engine 5.1. Wings of Theve was later confirmed to be developed in Unreal Engine 5.

By January 2024, Wings of Theve had reached a point in development where Kono felt confident in sharing vague details about the game on social media. Calling it "co-creation" with the fans, he began posting sporadic details about the game's development on X (formerly known as Twitter). Some examples included map scale, the order in which the player may engage enemies, the level design of a specific mission, and the soundtrack. These posts continued into 2025 when Kono shared vague details about the game's voice acting and adjusting the color of the sky.

On June 13, 2024, English voice actor Mike Bodie's resume on the casting website Spotlight was discovered to have a list of unannounced games. One of these games was a Bandai Namco Studios game abbreviated as "AC8," where Bodie was slated to voice both a cargo pilot as well as a character named "Cope." The game was listed with a 2025 release year. Following online news reports of the leak, Bodie's resume was temporarily scrubbed of all content related to video games before being completely deleted.

Kazutoki Kono (left) and Manabu Shimomoto wearing Wings of Theve-styled jackets

Post-reveal

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve was officially announced at The Game Awards 2025. The game's reveal trailer debuted at the awards show, followed shortly by the official English and Japanese websites going live. Kono revealed on Twitter that the team had made the decision to reveal Wings of Theve at The Game Awards 2025 one year in advance.

An interview with Kono and Shimomoto, conducted by Japanese magazine Famitsu, was also published on the same day and revealed more details about the game. They confirmed Sunao Katabuchi—returning from Skies Unknown, Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, and Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies—wrote the game's screenplay, while Ryo Watanabe and Mitsuhiro Kitadani were in charge of composition for the game's soundtrack. Kono and Shimomoto remarked that Wings of Theve is not just an evolution from Skies Unknown, but rather a "deepening" of the Ace Combat formula as a whole. Instead of using trueSKY for cloud rendering, the team had switched to an in-house-developed engine named Cloudly; one of its goals is to render multiple cloud layers to assist players in discerning their level of altitude, reducing reliance on the head-up display. Kono revealed that all elements in the game are rendered at their real sizes, unlike previous titles such as Skies Unknown where certain elements were rendered at a 10:1 scale. When asked about an Su-57 making what appeared to be a Post Stall Maneuver, Kono mentioned that Post Stall Maneuvers were still in development, but that the maneuver the Su-57 performed was internally called a "Parthian shot." He explained that this name was part of the game's worldbuilding, hinting at Sotoa potentially having Iranian influence similar to Erusea having French influence in Skies Unknown. When asked about radio dialogue, Kono said he believed Wings of Theve has more recorded dialogue lines than any Ace Combat game before it, and he and Shimomoto explained that the player's performance will be taken into account more thoroughly when the game chooses radio lines to play, including "reward" lines for exceptional gameplay.

Gallery

Trailer

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References

Games

Ace Combat

Numbered Series

• Air Combat
• Ace Combat 2
• Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere
• Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies
• Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War
• Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War
• Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation
• Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown
• Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve

Secondary

• Ace Combat Advance
• Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception
• Ace Combat Xi: Skies of Incursion
• Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy
• Ace Combat: Northern Wings

Spin-offs

• Ace Combat: Joint Assault
• Ace Combat: Assault Horizon
• Trigger Finger
• Ace Combat Infinity

Unreleased

• Ace Combat SS: The Young Yellow

Others

Released

• Air Combat (arcade)
• Air Combat 22
• The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces
• AR Aircraft Hanger
• Mach Storm

Unreleased

• Brave Arms / Second / Chain Lim!t
• Galaxian Heroes