Ace Combat 8 beginner’s guide: tips for your first sorties

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve came out on 2 October on PS5, Xbox Series and PC, and plenty of people are flying it: Steamcharts recorded a peak of 48,550 concurrent players on Steam on 4 October. For many, it’s a first Ace Combat, and the opening missions can be a lot to take in, between control schemes, missiles on your tail and the aircraft tree. This guide pulls together what you need to get going. Every tip comes from Bandai Namco’s own explanations or from named player guides, with no magic formula.

At a glance

Ace Combat 8: picking your difficulty and controls

Ace Combat 8 offers four difficulty levels: Rookie, Pilot, Veteran and Elite. In Bandai Namco’s Steam post on choosing your difficulty, the publisher calls Pilot “the recommended mode for those who are new to flying”, and it’s also the default setting. You can change the difficulty whenever you like, so nothing is locked in at the start. Rookie adds an option that reduces collision damage when you clip the ground or a building.

In Ace Combat 8, your control scheme matters more. Standard mode lets you turn simply by pushing the left stick left or right. Expert mode has you roll the jet with the stick, then pitch up to turn, which opens up a wider range of manoeuvres and more precise handling. You choose each time you climb into the cockpit. GamingBolt’s Joelle Daniels recommends Expert whatever your experience, and so does ActuGaming’s review.

On PS5, the PlayStation Blog breaks down the basics: R2 accelerates, L2 slows you down, and holding both triggers a high-G turn. Circle fires missiles or your special weapon, Cross the machine gun, Square switches weapon and Triangle cycles targets. The d-pad issues orders to your wingmen, telling them to attack a target, scatter or fall back and cover you.

Shaking missiles and mastering the post-stall manoeuvre

Bandai Namco’s official walkthrough is clear about the basics of staying alive: avoid incoming missiles using chaff and flares, then get behind your target and finish it with missiles or the machine gun. A flare counter is shown on screen. On Veteran, the publisher warns, enemy missile locks become harder to shake.

For tight spots, Ace Combat 8 has the post-stall manoeuvre, or PSM. Arka Sarkar explains how in his Destructoid guide to the post-stall manoeuvre: drop below 500 km/h without stalling, accelerate and brake together to enter a high-G turn, wait half a second, then pull up to the vertical. Hit the throttle straight away to recover. According to Destructoid, only certain aircraft can do it, including the F-22A, Su-57 and F-35C. Its main use is breaking an enemy lock.

GamingBolt adds two simple habits. Clouds can be disorientating, but they also let you sneak up on a target unseen. And flying flat out all the time makes you overshoot the enemy rather than stay on its tail. Standard missiles remain your main weapon, with multi-target missiles best kept for specific situations.

Spending your MRP in the aircraft tree

Progress runs on a currency called MRP, earned through campaign missions. According to the official Ace Combat account, you spend it in the aircraft tree to unlock new jets, upgrade parts and special weapons, with several branching paths. Parts come in three types, BODY, ARMS and MISC, and how many you can fit varies from jet to jet.

Your first aircraft in Ace Combat 8 is the F/A-18C Hornet. Destructoid counts 34 aircraft at launch, with the MiG-21bis as an early purchase at 25,000 MRP and the F-14D at 90,000 MRP. GamingBolt suggests going deep down one branch of the tree rather than spreading your points thin, and replaying missions to build up MRP. Each jet carries two special weapons, chosen before the sortie.

Finally, the campaign hides 83 ace pilots to shoot down, again according to Destructoid, 31 of which only appear on Veteran or higher and under a condition specific to each mission. The online mode, ACE COMBAT ONLINE, has its own progression, kept separate from the campaign. It’s worth clearing a few solo missions in Ace Combat 8 first, just to find your feet before heading online.