Update (September 7, 2026 at 20:45 JST): Producer Kazutoki Kono has since issued clarification regarding statements from the below cited interview. He cautions that by “the largest volume in the series’ history, he does not mean strictly a higher number of missions, but overall content scale (including not only missions but cutscenes, cinematics and other elements within the campaign’s linear structure). His sentiment remains the same, however: Ace Combat 8 is a big and ambitious game, so players have a lot to look forward to. Below follows the original article:
Ace Combat brand director Kazutoki Kono recently talked to INVEN about the franchise’s latest entry, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, during a Bilibili First Look event held in Shanghai. Besides revealing a brand-new playable stealth fighter jet set to appear in the game – the fictional “FA-36 Game” – Kono also touched on what players can expect from the latest entry in terms of scale.
According to the director, AC8’s campaign will boast the highest volume of content in the series’ history. In many ways, it will exceed even the original Japanese version of Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere. Not to be confused with the heavily abridged international version, the domestic Ace Combat 3 boasted an ambitiously complex storyline with 52 missions, multiple endings, and numerous cutscenes packaged into two CDs.
Ace Combat 8, however, will outnumber Electrosphere when it comes to campaign missions, cinematics, and other content, according to Kono. While it tells a linear story unlike Ace Combat 3, Kono is confident the new entry will bring “the largest campaign in the history of the series.”
Independent of Ace Combat 8’s campaign is the online mode, which will offer several types of co-op alongside special missions and limited-time PvP and PvE. Kono remarks that this part of the game will essentially be run as a live service, which means the team will “naturally consider creating additional content” if players show interest for it post-launch.
Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is scheduled to release on October 2 for PC (Steam), PS5, and Xbox Series X❘S.
