Few game franchises capture the fantasy of becoming an ace pilot quite like Ace Combat – with accessible arcade-like controls, beautiful looking fighter jets, and cinematic storytelling, it has long been a recipe for a good time for over 30 years. Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve returns us to that world of soaring spectacle starting October 2 for XBOX Series X|S with even deeper aircraft customization and more epic set pieces along with a squadron whose personalities bring added weight to every mission.
As you can tell by the trailer footage and screenshots, Ace Combat 8 is an incredible looking game. The work put into the new cloud layer tech really brings the sky to life, as well as the touches on the ground environments that show off some extraordinary attention to detail. Buildings and trees are easily identifiable, and the shape of the canyon terrain is impressive when flying through these large gameplay maps. Same goes for the interior and exterior of the carrier Endurance, your primary home base throughout the game, which shows its wear and tear with pride during the campaign as a floating island of refuge.
But it’s the aircraft, as always, who are the stars of the show – and they’re just as impressive as ever. This game is truly a visual marvel, one that shines a light on the beautiful mechanical design of fighter jets, from the swept-wing F-14 Tomcat to the brash-but-beautiful A-10 Warthog. And for good reason – they’re front-and-center throughout the campaign. Yes, there are alternate in-cockpit views available for each aircraft, but I kept the external camera as my primary so I could see these majestic machines in action during my missions.
There are over 30 aircraft featured in the game, and as you progress through the campaign you earn in-game credits to spend on unlocking additional planes and upgrades in the aircraft tree; completing additional objectives can net you more credits to spend. You can bet I was taking every opportunity to mop up some additional ground targets on each mission to help fill my wallet.
There are four main types of aircraft that you can acquire, and they each have a role to play on the missions: Fighters (combat), Multirole (versatile), Attacker (ground attack), and Electronic Warfare (buffer/support). You’re not wrong in thinking that sounds like a prime recipe for a good dungeon crawling party, as bringing a balanced, multi-role fighter group into the missions is one of the keys to success that I found.
Before each sortie, you’re given a lot of flexibility in not only the makeup of the fighter group you put together, but also in terms of upgrades you can apply to your craft like improved maneuverability, acceleration, and targeting improvements that make each mission feel that much more unique and opens up a lot of replayability potential. Want to take Prowler on a mission in a support role, or mop up ground targets in an A-10 while your wingmen cover you? That’s completely on the table.
Having now played through the first 10 campaign missions, I found them all incredibly fun and robust, giving you a mix of everything from escort missions, bombing runs, air-to-air combat, mixed in with some incredible set pieces like taking out a land battleship or protecting your fragile carrier fleet. Each mission has felt distinct and unique, with its own challenges to manage, and in-flight decision making that can help turn the tide of battle.
If you need help getting your bearings, Ace Combat 8 also offers a series of progressively challenging training missions to help you get used to the controls – personally, I’m pretty adept at these types of games, so I didn’t dabble too much into this feature, but I appreciate the work put in to make this game as accessible as possible to help newer pilots earn their wings.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/09/25/ace-combat-8-wings-of-theve-high-flying-drama-xbox/
