Long, emotional campaign with great missions
Mentioned in ~1 in 2 positive reviews
“The campaign alone is worth the price of admission. 30 missions of incredible gameplay”
Steam review · 23 h played ↗
ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE
Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.
Mostly Positive · 78%Mostly Positive · 78%Bandai Namco Aces Inc.2026Flight · Shooter · Action
The verdict
A cinematic Ace Combat campaign with a superb soundtrack and heavy-feeling flight, but the PC launch is rough: crashes, memory leaks, no HOTAS rebinding and monetized online.
Great for
Ace Combat fans and newcomers who want a cinematic, story-driven arcade jet campaign with a great soundtrack
Main risk
Crashes, memory leaks and poor optimization can make it unplayable on your PC
What players love
Incredible soundtrack
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 positive reviews
“Best orchestra album in years, especially the tribal chanting part and songs.”
Steam review · 24.2 h played ↗
Stunning graphics, weather and cutscenes
Mentioned in ~1 in 6 positive reviews
“Absolutely beautiful by far the best AC to date in terms of graphical fidelity.”
Steam review · 14.1 h played ↗
Heavy, satisfying flight and combat
Mentioned in ~1 in 12 positive reviews
“The jets feel weighty and solid, the afterburners are punchy, missiles feel good to shoot”
Steam review · 22.5 h played ↗
What players complain about
Crashes, UE errors and failure to launch
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews
“I had 3 crashes in the first mission.”
Steam review · 1.4 h played ↗
Poor optimization and memory leak
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“AC8 seems to have a massive memory leak problem.”
Steam review · 0.3 h played ↗
Online broken, and no Linux multiplayer
Mentioned in ~1 in 6 negative reviews
“as soon as we try to start a mission we get "Error ST-3200003"”
Steam review · 0.2 h played ↗
Ace Combat Zero is not a standalone game
Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews
“You need to install 140gb of data to play a 3gb 20 years old game.”
Steam review · 26.8 h played ↗
No HOTAS support or control rebinding
Mentioned in ~1 in 9 negative reviews
“No ability to directly configure controls, meaning that the game cannot be played with the majority of joysticks or other HOTAS setups.”
Steam review · 0.4 h played ↗
Pay-to-win battle pass and monetization
Mentioned in ~1 in 10 negative reviews
“PAY TO WIN. you can buy SSS+ tier pvp planes for cash”
Steam review · 12.8 h played ↗
System requirements
From the Steam store page
Steam Deck: UnsupportedController support150 GB
Minimum
OSWindows 11
ProcessorIntel Core i7-10700K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
Memory16 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060[6 GB] / AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT[8 GB]
Storage150 GB available space
Recommended
OSWindows 11
ProcessorIntel Core i7-12700K / AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
Memory32 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070[8 GB] / AMD Radeon RX 6800 [16 GB]
Storage150 GB available space
OSWindows 11
ProcessorIntel Core i7-10700K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
Memory16 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060[6 GB] / AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT[8 GB]
Storage150 GB available space
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