I absolutely loved playing Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve (Hands-on Impressions)

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[00:15] code skillup at manscape.com, more details after the video. Alright, confession time. I played around 20 games when I was at some games first early this month, but there was one above others that I loved playing to the point where the courteous event staff had

[00:28] to remind me on multiple occasions that my time was up, and that I definitely had to hand the controller back right now. That game was Ace Combat 8, Wings of Thief.

[00:51] I will admit that I was a little surprised by how much I loved this, especially when thinking about it in retrospect. If you look at the features list of Ace Combat 8, it isn't all that different from 7. Some nicer visuals, absolutely, a different approach to storytelling, sure.

[01:05] The ability to command your squadmates, a feature that was present in previous games, but absent in 7. God damn land tank that feels like you're trying to take down the scarif of Halo 2, only this time from the air rather than on foot, hell yeah brother, sign me up.

[01:17] These things are all impressive in their own right, but listed this way, they make for a fairly modest list of changes vs Ace Combat 7, which by the way, released 7 years ago, given that lengthy development time, might we have expected a larger list of changes and or overhalls

[01:31] for this next entry. Well, maybe, but it wasn't until I sat down with Ace Combat 8 and saw it for myself that I was able to appreciate just how much uplift these things deliver, like this game looks incredible. It's actually running on Unreal Engine 5, but developer project Aces has also bolted on

[01:46] parts of their own proprietary Cloudly Engine, which is purpose built to handle volumetric effects like clouds, fog, weather effects and more. Never before has the sky looked this detail, this beautiful, but also this terrifying.

[01:59] Team Aces have both captured a natural beauty so that all of this looks authentic, but they've also carefully shaped these cloud formations and weather events such that they have this unnatural deliberateness to them. The sky feels both overwhelmingly expansive and comfortably linear, you can go anywhere

[02:14] you please, but you also know exactly where Team Aces want you to go, and you can trust their guidance whenever you're feeling disoriented.

[02:29] But I'm just banging on about the sky here, when there's just as much visual uplift that's been poured into the rest of the package too. Plains and the hangar look like straight up plain, porn, beautifully lit and detailed, ground density and urban environments has been substantially improved, and it really feels like you're fighting

[02:42] above an actual city, rather than above a bunch of square and wide boxes that admit to look like a city. Hell, even the camera work feels better and more immersive, mocking and sharply behind you when you're in control, but shaking and slightly drifting away from you when you start to take

[02:55] enemy fire. So visually, it's stunning, far more than I was expecting. I mean, let's not forget that the last Ace Combat game was a PS4 title, and this is next

[03:11] gen, technically speaking. You can see how much work Team Aces are put into making this the best looking Ace Combat game ever, and honestly, I think this is just a benchmark visual title regardless of genre. I just love looking at this thing, I really do.

[03:29] Storytelling was one of the other big surprises for me too. Now I am by no means an Ace Combat Superfan, but the Ace Combat games I have played, the story was a bit of a quiet taste to put it politely. I know there are many people who are deeply invested in all the expansive, voluminous series

[03:44] lore, but I am not one of those people, and frankly, despite the fact that I really loved Ace Combat 7, I had absolutely no love for its story, which I found convoluted to the point of being impenetrable. In contrast, Ace Combat 8's story immediately makes sense, and it's immediately compelling,

[03:58] and it's immediately thought-provoking actually. It begins with you riding shotgun with the wings of Thief, a legendary Ace pilot who strikes fear into the heart of the enemy, only that's all a lie. The wings of Thief, there are manufactured propaganda mascot cooked up by the government

[04:12] to win hearts and minds. The man you fly with freely admits that he doesn't have any kill count to boast of, and he's essentially just a fraud by no choice of his own. When he dies, you take up his mantle, but also his psyche in that he becomes a voice in

[04:26] your head in raiding events as they unfold. It's definitely one part anime, one part spy thriller, and 100% on brand for Ace Combat's particular flavor of melodrama, but principally, it creates a very grounded, thematic story

[04:38] that is instantly easy to understand and connect with. Visual uplift is a nice improvement for the series, but it's one that you'd expect with each new entry. This refined storytelling on the other hand feels like an actual response to longstanding

[04:50] criticisms of the series, signaling that project aces are looking to adapt their formula where it makes sense to do so. Look, the truth is, these things weren't the reasons I loved Ace Combat 8 as much as I did.

[05:03] Instead, it was just being reminded of what an incredible job this series does of manufacturing sheer excitement and hype and tension, it's playable top gun, sure, but it's honestly more than that, it's like an amusement park ride from the comfort of your living room.

[05:16] Like, if you put on one of those heart monitors when you're playing this thing, it's gonna produce results. And honestly, it's really hard to convince people of that if they haven't played an Ace Combat game before, but those of you who have no exactly what I'm talking about because that's

[05:28] the feeling that makes you an instant fan of this franchise, and so few games can recreate it in the same way. It takes no time for the game to start delivering that first dose by the way, sadly I don't have any footage of the early mission since the capture wasn't permitted, but Mission 1 is a fairly

[05:41] stock standard intro to your flight controls and squad commands, soon after that, though, on the way back to your air carrier, you're ambushed and suddenly find yourself both leading your squad and trying to intercept a squadron of bombers before they drop their payloads. It's a simple, dare I say, generic setup, but it's done so well with this cinematic music

[05:58] that hits so right and this radio channel that's providing exposition while also ratcheting up the tension, plus you've got this weird voice on your head kind of narrating everything after that, the stunning visuals and some very, very precise difficulty tuning, and you're

[06:10] just immediately immersed in this ace pilot fantasy feeling fully in command of your aircraft, fully engaged in the story, and fully overstimulated by the sights and sounds of this aerial combat.

[06:31] In this mission design stuff I'm talking about here, this is just my experience playing the game for just over an hour, whereas Stu, a member of our team, actually played a hell of a lot more than that, it was invited to a dedicated preview of any in LA a week before some games have started, and then he got to spend about 3-4 hours with the game playing

[06:46] through multiple missions, including some that were much later in the game, rather than trying to rehash his thoughts, I think it's better if I let him tell you, take it away Stu. I hate flying in real life, whether it's my fear of heights or turbulence anxiety, even

[07:00] the 50 minute flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles to preview Ace Combat Wings of Thieves had my heart rate up, but Ace Combat 8 reminded me that I love flying in video games. Ralph has covered the game feel and some of the early missions, but having 4 hours with

[07:14] the game showed me just how much project aces are pouring into this entire experience, and I think that shows itself most clearly in the variety and complexity of its mission stories. Playing through each mission felt like the team had put everything on the table to craft

[07:28] an expansive and varied sequence of missions that matched the majesty of the environments and the depth of the storytelling. I'm going to use 3 examples that I was allowed to capture during my play session to illustrate just how massive and multifaceted this game feels.

[07:41] The first mission had me taking out a naval fleet, dropping bombs on fleeing ships while dog fighting a squadron of enemy pilots that at one point were our allies. The main objective felt very similar to anything I played in Ace Combat 7, but that story

[07:53] twist kept the chatter in my helmet engaging and eventually changed the trajectory of the mission, to make sure that I didn't accidentally gun down the enemy squad. In Ace Combat 7, story beats were presented in a very black and white manner with clear heroes

[08:06] and villains. Ace Combat 8 is approaching its narrative with a much more nuanced hand. It's no less melodramatic, but I appreciate that even in smaller mission moments, the realities of being a made up symbol for a war that you were thrust into and the paper thin veil between

[08:20] an enemy and ally is communicated so effectively even without a lengthy cutscene. Mission 2 was technically the last story I played, but I want to highlight its pure spectacle first. It had Joker Squadron ripping through massive cloud arches and avoiding thunderstorms to

[08:34] find immense cargo planes transporting parts for a land battleship. My map was out so I had to follow the highway-sized chemtrails through the clouds to find my target. Although these transports resemble the Arsenal bird from Ace Combat 7, they are much easier

[08:49] to take out. It felt like a true Ace pilot, taking out all the propellers on one cargo plane to then have its dismembered wing fall onto the plane below it, completely eviscerating it. It was awesome.

[09:09] Outside of the combat spectacle, the jump from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5 alongside the layering in of Project Ace's proprietary engine cloudly is fully felt in the immense sky during this mission. Arching clouds in the distance, ominous thunder clouds crackling and booming on both sides

[09:24] of you, soaring through the dense condensation of a storm cloud out into the clear stratosphere. The skyboxes in Ace Combat 8 are some of the most breathtaking I've ever seen in a video game, making them an absolute joy to fly through no matter what the weather.

[09:36] I had multiple moments of awe while navigating the skies of Ace Combat 8, whether it was barreling through the arches of those colossal cloud formations, puddle jumping over sun-soaked islands, or snaking through high-rise buildings in a sprawling snow-covered metropolis, wings

[09:50] of thieve is a sight to behold. Speaking of which, the last story I want to highlight is the perfect combination of the first two, merging bombastic storytelling with an incredible show-stopping set piece.

[10:04] The sequence saw me facing off against a land battleship, which is exactly what it sounds like, a hooking beast that looks like a naval battleship but replaces rudders and propellers with tank treads so we can wreck havoc on land.

[10:18] While trying to avoid its railgun and mounted defenses, I helped my allied tanks expose its massive tracks, eventually leading it towards the skyscrapers in the middle of the city. After multiple attempts to topple buildings onto the sluggish behemoth, the last building

[10:30] wouldn't go down with planted bombs alone. Of course, the only option was to fire my missiles into the building, demolishing it, and finally stopping the destructive path of the land battleship. At every moment during this mission, whether it was precisely firing my missiles right at

[10:53] the last moment, or the ghostly voice of the pilot that had my call sign before me cryptically whispering in my ear, this felt like Ace Combat 8's version of the trench run from a new hope, and it wholeheartedly matches the spectacle and tension that iconic scene with its own Ace

[11:09] Combat twist. It's also hard as hell, I barely made it through my first time playing and on subsequent tries to get better footage, I couldn't even make it to that trench run moment. I respect this difficulty tuning though, the encounter feels like a boss battle without

[11:22] the screen-spanning health bar, and the challenge fits perfectly in line with the over-the-top melodrama and immense spectacle that are some of the foundations for Ace Combat.

[11:40] During my preview session, I got to take part in a group interview with longtime brand director Kazutoki Kono. The one thing that really stuck out with me is I played through these different sorties where the three pillars that Kono said Ace Combat is built on, quote, the first one is

[11:53] the photorealistic sky, a sense of freedom you get through soaring through it, and the next is the satisfaction of shooting down enemies, and the third is that sensation or experience of becoming an ace pilot.

[12:05] From what I've played of Ace Combat 8 Wings of Thieves so far, the game delivers on every single one of these pillars, and I can't wait to see how the team continues to iterate and innovate through their mission structure and story beats in the full game.

[12:17] Alright, that's enough out of me, Ralph, take us in for landing. Coming back to that whole amusement park ride analogy, I think Bandai knows exactly what this game's appeal is. Most of the hands-on sessions you go to at an event like this are just little pods with

[12:30] a monitor and an uncomfy chair, not so for Ace Combat 8. They had this custom-made cockpit featuring a mocked up dash, it's all a pretend of course, but so are video games, and that little touch represents a commitment to immersion that

[12:42] echoes through every part of Ace Combat 8. And hey, this is just a preview, it's not a final review, but there are some previews you walk out of and you're like, yeah, okay, not bad, let's see how the rest of the package looks at launch, some games though you think to yourself, God damn man, if this game ends

[12:55] up sucking, it's gonna break my heart. Ace Combat 8 is definitely in that latter category. More visuals, tighter storytelling, requested fan features, and that same commitment to edge of your seat white knuckles balls to the wall excitement that is the hallmark of

[13:07] every game in this franchise. It's all here man, and it's never looked or sounded or felt better, which is why Ace Combat 8 was actually the best, most fun thing that I played at Summer Games first this year, and it is absolutely one of my most anticipated games for 2026.

[13:21] If you have never played an Ace Combat game before, and I really recommend checking out seven as a warm up, since you can get heavily discounted and I guarantee you that you'll have a great time with it, for those of you who already have played seven, and you just really ached for eight, October 2nd is not close sadly, but hey, at least we know that Project Aces are

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