If Top Gun were a melodramatic, high-budget soap opera, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is what you’d get. Spectacular and overwhelming all at once, this over-the-top flight combat simulator is quite the thrill, head-scratching as it may be at times.
As bombastic as Ace Combat 8 may be in tone and delivery, it’s easy to get caught up in its earnest sincerity. Within its expansive single-player campaign is a fascinating meta-narrative. Like how you embody the role of somebody else when playing a video game, so does the silent protagonist. Ordered to assume the role of a fallen pilot, they unwittingly become a pawn in a larger military plot.
Without winking and nodding at you through the TV, it’s the most overt commentary on modern propaganda and the military-industrial complex I’ve encountered in a game.
What your pilot does isn’t what the rest of the world — hell, even the rest of the military — sees. Chopped up into short-form vertical videos for the masses to see, Ace Combat 8 shows a TikTok-era of warfare under the pretence of giving a nation a symbol of hope, however manufactured it may be.
And, if you can believe it, there’s plenty of dogfighting action in between.
Highway to the danger zone
Seeing the phrase ‘simulator’ might give the impression that Ace Combat 8 isn’t a game that anyone can jump in and play. Fortunately, this isn’t the case. Despite the ‘8’ in its name, Wings of Theve doesn’t require any existing knowledge, gameplay or lore. Even for a first-time Ace Combat pilot, the barrier to entry is low.
One part of this is a generous set of control schemes. One set of options handles most of the basics of flight, leaving you to focus solely on hunting targets across land, air, and sea. The other control scheme takes off the training wheels (wings?), giving you full control of your jet’s range of motion to pitch and yaw to your heart’s content.
Even on the basic set of controls, Ace Combat 8 thrills with each encounter. Depicted in eye-popping detail, every flight is a visual feast. Water droplets wash over your view when plunging into clouds, and the sheer scale of the earth beneath you is breathtaking.
It doesn’t take long for the action to ramp up, as opposing forces strike from all angles. Ace Combat 8 produces an astounding sense of speed and weight, making every missile fired and every bombing run feel like a playable movie. As more jet customisation options — based on real-world aircraft — unlock throughout the campaign, it’s quickly apparent how differently each craft handles.
Aside from the controls and action, Ace Combat 8’s other beginner-friendly trait is its self-contained story. Not wanting to inadvertently be the powder keg that sets off World War III, the narrative revolves around entirely fictional nations. I kid you not, the series’ in-game universe is called “Strangereal”.
Combining the aerial action of Top Gun with the ridiculousness of Mission: Impossible, Ace Combat 8 would make Tom Cruise proud.
Keen for a chat
Even outside of Ace Combat 8 melodramatic cutscenes, there’s rarely a moment when someone isn’t talking. My theory is that your wingmen think they’re in the movie Speed. Except instead of blowing up for driving under 50mph, they’re worried they’ll die if they go two seconds without speaking.
Modern video games often cop criticism for being too chatty. Haven’t pressed an input for five seconds? Get ready for a not-so-subtle quip about what you should be doing next! To some, it’s the Netflix-ification of games, where everything needs to be spelled out as if you weren’t paying attention. There’s also the school of thought that because of how visually dense modern games are, they need to go to greater lengths to stop you from getting lost.
Regardless of where you land on the above scale, Ace Combat 8 is extremely verbose. Dialogue-heavy cutscenes between missions explain what’s at stake, something you’re reminded of at every moment. In the air, radio chatter constantly pollutes the airwaves, often consisting of inane banter with little relation to the mission. To be fair, the voice actors did a bang-up job of selling the exposition-heavy script they received.
Roughly halfway through the campaign, your squad’s resident stunt pilot extraordinaire remarks that the overwhelming alerts and cross-chatter during missions cause her to tune out. It took me a moment to process this — like most of Ace Combat 8’s firehose of non-stop exposition. After a beat, I laughed. She literally put into words what I thought from the game’s opening moments!
If there were ever an example of a game being self-aware, this line of dialogue deserves a mention. In the heat of a mission, the constant talking proved grating and distracting, making it tricky to follow what I should be paying attention to.
Removed from the moment, though, Ace Combat 8’s verbosity felt apt. It tells a story about manipulation through deliberately placed information. Perhaps by flooding your comms with non-stop voices, it gives your voiceless pilot — and you — no room to think, no room to question authority, because only the mission matters.
And there’s little to question about the joy of piloting a high-speed jet like you’re in a Hollywood blockbuster.
Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve was reviewed on PS5 Pro with a code provided by the publisher.
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