{"id":67878,"date":"2026-06-08T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=67878"},"modified":"2026-06-08T18:03:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T09:03:43","slug":"ace-combat-8-developers-worked-so-closely-with-fighter-jet-manufacturers-it-made-them-wonder-are-we-allowed-to-know-all-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/ace-combat-8-developers-worked-so-closely-with-fighter-jet-manufacturers-it-made-them-wonder-are-we-allowed-to-know-all-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Ace Combat 8 developers worked so closely with fighter jet manufacturers\u00a0it made them wonder,\u00a0\u201cAre we allowed to know all this?\u201d\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Ace Combat 8: WINGS&nbsp;OF THEVE<\/strong>, the Ace Combat series\u2019 first mainline entry in&nbsp;seven years,&nbsp;is set to release on October 2 for PC (Steam), PS5 and Xbox Series X\u2758S.&nbsp;Together with a new walkthrough trailer&nbsp;detailing&nbsp;gameplay and customization, the&nbsp;devs&nbsp;at Project Aces recently shared some&nbsp;anecdotes from the development process&nbsp;itself, especially regarding how the game\u2019s high level of realism was achieved.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE | Walkthrough Trailer\" width=\"1160\" height=\"653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DcphpBvdt28?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In a joint media interview&nbsp;attended&nbsp;by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/game.watch.impress.co.jp\/docs\/interview\/2113356.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">GameWatch<\/a>, Ace Combat&nbsp;franchise&nbsp;director Kazutoki Kono and Ace Combat 8 producer Manabu Shimomoto&nbsp;say that when it comes to licensing&nbsp;real-life&nbsp;aircraft, the thing manufacturers care about most is accurate&nbsp;visual&nbsp;representation, but achieving it&nbsp;is&nbsp;anything but&nbsp;easy.&nbsp;\u201cNaturally, we put a great deal of effort into ensuring everything is as&nbsp;accurate&nbsp;as possible, but fighter jets are essentially bundles of military secrets, so there are aspects you simply can&#8217;t fully recreate using only publicly available information,\u201d Shimomoto comments.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a result, the process of designing&nbsp;aircraft&nbsp;for Ace Combat 8 revolved around a cycle of gathering publicly available resources, designing prototypes based on them, and having manufacturers review them for inaccuracies.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1178\" height=\"660\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1178px) 100vw, 1178px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260608-67878-header.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-67897\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260608-67878-header.jpg 1178w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260608-67878-header-380x213.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260608-67878-header-768x430.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey would tell us, \u2018This part is outdated,\u2019 or \u2018This part is incorrect.\u2019 A lot of our interactions revolved around incorporating that feedback and gradually bringing the&nbsp;aircraft&nbsp;closer to the real thing. But&nbsp;what&#8217;s&nbsp;interesting is that some of the&nbsp;feedback manufacturers&nbsp;gave us was&nbsp;based on information that isn&#8217;t publicly available, so&nbsp;we\u2019d&nbsp;end up wondering,&nbsp;\u2018Are we&nbsp;actually allowed&nbsp;to know this?&nbsp;Is it&nbsp;really okay&nbsp;to&nbsp;implement this?\u2019\u201d&nbsp;Shimomoto says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even so, the&nbsp;devs&nbsp;say they continued to work in the details through close discussions with&nbsp;manufacturers,&nbsp;and&nbsp;even received input for in-game descriptions. \u201cThe people who build these&nbsp;aircraft are deeply passionate about them, so their commitment is reflected not only in the visual accuracy of the jets, but also in the accompanying texts.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apart from&nbsp;licensing,&nbsp;to ensure&nbsp;a high level&nbsp;of realism in Ace of Combat 8, the&nbsp;developers&nbsp;even&nbsp;traveled to military bases to record actual fighter jet sounds. Shimomoto recalls&nbsp;spending long hours under Okinawa&#8217;s summer heat aiming shotgun microphones at the sky while waiting for&nbsp;aircraft&nbsp;to fly overhead, jokingly calling it a&nbsp;\u201crecording session straight out of hell.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1179\" height=\"661\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1179px) 100vw, 1179px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260608-67878-001jpg.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-67898\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260608-67878-001jpg.jpg 1179w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260608-67878-001jpg-380x213.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260608-67878-001jpg-768x431.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The developers also visited a museum built around a real aircraft carrier, collecting reference photographs and performing photogrammetry scans. Measurements taken on-site were used to help recreate the vessel at full scale.&nbsp;Since Ace Combat 8 is&nbsp;being developed entirely at a true 1:1 scale&nbsp;(unlike past&nbsp;entries that used exaggerated dimensions),&nbsp;aircraft carriers, fighter jets, and hangars all exist within a 100-kilometer-square world using real-world proportions.&nbsp;According to Kono,&nbsp;thanks to this, the&nbsp;first-person views within the game feel far closer to real-world footage than in&nbsp;previous&nbsp;titles.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ace Combat 8: WINGS OF THEVE\u00a0launches on October 2 for PC (Steam), PS5 and Xbox Series X\u2758S.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Related:&nbsp;<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/going-fast-will-feel-realer-than-ever-in-ace-combat-8-thanks-to-new-proprietary-cloud-engine-devs-detail-new-features-and-technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Going fast will feel realer than ever in Ace Combat 8 thanks to new proprietary cloud engine. Devs detail new&nbsp;features and technology<\/strong><\/a><strong><\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ace Combat 8: Wing of Theve producer Manabu Shimomoto talks about what it took to make the game and its aircrafts so realistic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":67896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-67878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-development","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ace Combat 8 developers worked so closely with fighter jet manufacturers\u00a0it made them wonder,\u00a0\u201cAre we allowed to know all this?\u201d\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ace Combat 8: Wing of Theve producer Manabu Shimomoto talks about what it took to make the game and its aircrafts so realistic.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/ace-combat-8-developers-worked-so-closely-with-fighter-jet-manufacturers-it-made-them-wonder-are-we-allowed-to-know-all-this\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ace Combat 8 developers worked so closely with fighter jet manufacturers\u00a0it made them wonder,\u00a0\u201cAre we allowed to know all this?\u201d\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ace Combat 8: Wing of Theve producer Manabu Shimomoto talks about what it took to make the game and its aircrafts so realistic.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/ace-combat-8-developers-worked-so-closely-with-fighter-jet-manufacturers-it-made-them-wonder-are-we-allowed-to-know-all-this\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-08T14:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260608-67878-0-2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1183\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"663\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ace Combat 8 developers worked so closely with fighter jet manufacturers\u00a0it made them wonder,\u00a0\u201cAre we allowed to know all this?\u201d\u00a0 - 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