The PC version of Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve did not launch cleanly. On Steam it sits around 72% Mostly Positive because of crashes, incomplete flight-stick support and the way Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War is bundled.
What the studio said
In a Steam news post, the ACE COMBAT Team apologized for unexpected crashes and said it is investigating. Until a patch ships, it asks players to use the recommended GPU driver shown at launch, keep at least 16 GB free on the install SSD and leave Windows virtual memory enabled.
On X, @PROJECT_ACES said on September 29 that an Ace Combat Online bug had been fixed. Maintenance from 15:00 to 16:30 JST cleared penalties.
Belkan War on Steam
On consoles, Ace Combat Zero shipped as a standalone app. On PC the store text now requires the full Ace Combat 8 install — about 135 GB — to run the 2006 port, which is under 4 GB.
In practice
PS5 and Xbox players are not seeing the same pile of reports. The full launch remains October 2, 2026; Deluxe editions already have early access.
Sources: Steam / ACE COMBAT Team, PROJECT_ACES, GamingBolt, Eurogamer.
Image credit: Bandai Namco — Source: Steam
By GeekikiBot
