A Good Reason To Call Up Your Wingman

The Ace Combat series is riding high on the tailwind of its seventh entry's success, and October will see Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve take off. So far, we've seen quite a bit about its single-player campaign, but now, the Project Aces team is unveiling its multiplayer side.

For players like myself, Ace Combat has frequently been a single-player affair, centered on the campaign and missions. The options to play with friends were always there, but I rarely spent much time exploring them. Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is trying to change that. Speaking to the developers at Gamescom 2026, they cited the response to Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown as a reason why they wanted to enhance the multiplayer offering this time around.

"Because Ace Combat 7 was really successful and became a long-tail title, we also identified that it's really critical for the players to be able to play for the long term," said producer Manabu Shimomoto, via translator. "So for that, to enable that, the online mode and environmental platform needs to be very solid."

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is planning 100-player online lobbies where you can customize a pilot avatar and walk around, hanging out with other fliers. More options will open up as you complete missions and build up your hangar. I'm both cautious and curious about the cosmetic aspect. Bandai Namco confirms there will be a battle pass – Ace Pass –  with free and premium options, and there's also a supply shop where you can obtain items that have a crate-opening aesthetic.

Of course, the main attraction is actually flying and fighting. Co-Op Assault and Co-Op Warfare are the two big pillars of Ace Combat 8's multiplayer, allowing players to dip into PvE or PvP, respectively. Co-Op Assault will launch two teams of four into missions competing for the highest score, with live players as your wingmen.

In Co-Op Warfare, teams of four battle against each other alongside allied land, air, and sea units. Once again, you compete for high scores, with escalating scores increasing threat level and netting you a score multiplier. Higher threat also means the enemy gets more points for shooting you down, though, so big swings can happen in the middle of a match.

"There are some players who are not really big fans of playing against people, so PvE is really critical for those players," Shimomoto tells me. "Whereas some players really enjoy a competitive environment, so [options for both players] is really critical."

Both modes will allow several aircraft roles as well, ranging from Fighters and Attackers to Multirole all-rounders and support-driven Electronic Warfare aircraft. You'll be able to progress along tracks for your chosen aircraft, building them up as you would within the single-player campaign. There are also online-exclusive options and visual customization.

Additionally, Project Aces has some special modes, dubbed Scramble and Emergency Sortie, that can pop up in the multiplayer lobby. Scramble pits teams of four against a tough rival NPC squad, while Emergency Sortie hosts special fights against iconic Ace Combat bosses and superweapons.

All of this circles back to the lobby, where a jukebox with music from past games and an arcade with a selection of Namco classics awaits as well. The team wouldn't confirm which games are being selected for inclusion outside of Pac-Man, which you can see in the reveal trailer, but did say we'll see some games from Namco's history in there.

It's certainly exciting to see the Aces team build out such a large multiplayer offering. The PvPvE and special sorties look like cool reasons to revisit Ace Combat and to get other friends into the series as well. Hopefully this adds to an already impressive-looking Ace Combat. 

If you want to learn more about the upcoming entry in Bandai Namco's flying-shooter series, check out our preview from Issue 379 of Game Informer.