Review
Played on: Xbox Series X
Released: 2026
It's pretty astonishing how little changes from one Ace Combat to the next. With the fundamental blueprint laid down as far back as AC2, perfected in AC5 and taken to a new height in AC6, they fail to innovate the formula in any significant way.
Sure, they tried with Ace Combat: Assault Horizon and although it a had some issues, hardcore fans turned bitter and refused change. It's sad though, to see Namco never daring to try anything radical since, and thus it's a series which repeats itself over with only the visuals moving forward.
A small square of land, where you fly about taking down aircraft and ground targets in what seems like a set of 3-4 mission types rotated through a sombre, anti-war, story in each and every release. Furthermore, fuel is a non-issue, ammo reserves are ridiculous, you can bounce on the ground and landing/take-offs are still optional.
You'd think the AC players could be pushed to take a little more simulation into account by now or at least accept some changes to the formula, alas it very much just retains what it actually is: a shoot ‘em up where highscores and moving wildly about is the goal. It looks real but is removed far from reality.
Personally, Ace Combat 7 failed to impress, check my reviews of everything AC here, even more so when I think back. It was a much less impressive release than Ace Combat 6 which pushed innovative ideas and boundaries. Does AC8 deliver a better job, regardless of repetition and flashy visuals?
Let's fly in for a closer look!
While the premise was first used in AC: Assault Horizon, the disliked fanbase iteration, AC8 features a story told through a first-person perspective using the ingame graphics. You can move the camera around a little to look at the surroundings, although it's a limited feature. It even has stupid "press to handshake" prompts, another idea taken from AC: AH.
The idea behind these scenes is to see things from the narrator's point of view, who's a pilot. It works when he's walking about an aircraft carrier with lots of stuff happening around you, but often it just depicts a conversation at a table or in a hanger. It leaves your pilot anonymous and forgettable, coupled with a strained, mumbling voice and endless complaining, it just ends up being a background noise rather than creating any impact to the story.
The other pilots are a cool bunch, at least Baxter and Tasha, and bring a human side to the story. They're both lively and positive people too, taking us a little away from the overly depressing style the franchise has become synonymous with. Because they're shown in interactive cutscenes, they seem more tangible than just CGI characters in cutscenes too. However, most of their interaction is once again displayed through endless, and frankly noisy, radio chatter during battles.
I like how these wingmen are helpful again though. They were non-existing in AC7, they flew about attacking not one single target, leaving you to destroy absolutely everything yourself. Here in AC8, you can set them to support you, dispatch, attack a certain target and allow them to use special weapons. We've seen this before since AC5, but it was something that should never have been taken away from AC7in the first place, so it's nice to see it return.
When it comes to actual story, it's the same endless Strangereal war of made-up nations, evil corporations and the not-so-subtle NATO vs Russia references. It feels like I've seen this story countless times before.
When it comes to the gameplay, a reoccurring disappointment for me with this franchise is the lack of will to change anything. Each version sports flashy new visuals but the mission structure, available airspace and stories all just feel like massive repetitions.
Some missions don't even make any sense in modern times; timed missions with highscores? It's like a bad aftertaste of an arcade timer that has remained in the franchise for no apparent reason. The same is the reluctance to add realism, progressing their fanbase somewhat in skills.
How about adding some more advanced physics to the way the aircraft turn or force in fuel and ammo conservation as a thing? Maybe I'm just not understanding the fanbase here. As such, when the graphics splendour settles, you feel like you're playing the exact game you've been playing since Ace Combat 2.
Missions, while the same as always, are at least clearer here. AC7 had a couple of stand-out missions which annoyed because of unclear and very specific goals. Here it's. more straightforward, although there's a difficulty spike here and there, but nothing severe.
Clouds freezing up your aircraft and a slightly less lenient turn radius returns from AC7 and keeps things a little more interesting when engaging enemy aircraft through clouds.
Levelling system is retained from AC7 and it's annoyingly restrictive. With a grindy nature, you earn points for each mission and enemies you destroy, the problem is that you are stuck with the same aircraft for a long time as a consequence of locking all the aircraft behind a tree structure, requiring you to pay points to get to the aircraft you want.
Among the aircraft you want to buy are a large number of upgrades you can buy, but because of the linear structure of the tree, you're forced to buy lots of stuff you don't necessarily want to get to a certain upgrade or aircraft. Just make all the aircraft and their weapons systems available for purchase from the get-go and then keep the skill upgrades separate.
The skill upgrades in themselves are fine; each aircraft has a set of manoeuvrability slots, weapons slots and overall aircraft upgrade slots to add these upgrades too. As such, you must check what each upgrade does and weigh in what you prefer your aircraft to gain better performance from in that category.
There's no doubt that it's a stunning title to look at, with a strong focus on dense volumetric clouds and weather effects. Lighting is realistically depicted and the ground is convincingly detailed from above. The first few missions really impressed me with how pretty everything looks.
The best usage of lighting, however, is the way light sources affect the aircraft body and surrounding ground. With rockets putting a yellow tint on the aircraft body as they're fired or a burning ship lighting up a piece of ocean at night. It makes it overall more believable with an effect that you hadn't really thought of until you realise why it just looks "right".
Each jet fighter is immaculately modelled, with lots of moveable parts and incredibly detailed textures. It's a shame the levelling system locks you away from a lot of them, rather than having more of them available. Cockpit view suffers from a low field of view though, lacking that feeling of a bird's eye view from the glass canopy.
While it's no doubt a pretty game, it doesn't feel like massive leap since AC7 other than resolution on consoles. I understand new technical effects are present and we're looking at better textures and detail, but as I switched back to AC7 I wasn't seeing a huge difference to a release from seven years ago.
It's the same extremely limited airspace with either an ocean, mountains or a smaller city below in the middle of each map. After seeing so many of these it all kind of blends into one and I get how they can push visuals like this because the amount of ground detail, aircraft and units is extremely controlled and at a fairly small number in total. Once again, I miss the vast viewing distance and numbers of units AC6 so impressively depicted.
Overall, it's just a pretty package over the exact same layout, mission structure and strangereal "war is bad" story we've seen all too many times before. It's a franchise which refuses to innovate and as such leaves a bad aftertaste of repetition.
While AC7 felt watered down and short compared to the ambitious moving battlefields of AC6, AC8 at least feels more fleshed out than AC7. It offers a lengthy campaign for the genre even though you've played every mission multiple times before.
Flashy visuals and going safe with tested gameplay can only go so far; AC8 barely scrapes to a 4 simply because it's a bigger package than AC7, but it has nothing we haven't seen in earlier AC titles. Don't get me wrong here; I played through the entire game; I definitely had enjoyable moments. But when the visuals settled, it just felt like I'd played it all so many times before.
Blame AC Assault Horizon for changing the formula into something the fans didn't like but blame those same fans for making Namco never change the formula ever again. AC9 desperately needs to bring a new structure and ideas to the table.
