Top Gun did so much for cinema. In its exploration of young, competitive, maverick fighter pilots, the 1986 film illuminated the work of American naval aviator forces, imbuing them with a raw ‘cool’ factor that reshaped perceptions for years to come. While it also glorified war and patriotism, essentially becoming a recruitment film for young and impressionable men, it didn’t shy away from realities or consequences when exploring myths of heroism.
A major sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, released to rave critical reviews in 2022, depicting an aging fighter pilot and the impact of advancing combat technology. It was roundly praised for its realistic cinematography, with new camera tricks developed to show off the full scope of aviator warfare – its intensity, speed and viciousness.
Set to arrive in October, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, from Bandai Namco Aces, is a game that feels directly inspired by this approach, employing a similar cinematic style and a focus on the personal stories of pilots to tell a sweeping story about a fictional global conflict.
Ace Combat 8 preview – quick links
Getting by with a little help from your friends
Led by a new focus on characters, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve takes further steps into the narrative adventure genre than past games in the series.
You enter its world in Campaign Mode as a pilot defending against the encroachment of enemy forces, with the novel twist that you’re also accompanied by the voice of a legendary pilot who guides your development.
Wings of Theve imagines a fictional world of conflict in a universe known as Strangereal – a lot like Top Gun: Maverick, which also avoids identifying enemy forces to ensure no nation is off-sided by its depiction.
Here, victory is key, as much as keeping up appearances.
There’s a very neat thread of mythology and legend here, as you captain the iconic Wings of Theve aircraft – which is actually one of many in a long line, most of which have been downed in combat. The Federation of Central Usea, whose colours you fly under, has a clever and active marketing department that works to uphold the legend of the aircraft, and the mythology that it’s invincible.
All of the achievements of your predecessor pilots become your own, as you rally a crew of fellow pilots to push back the forces of the Republic of Sotoa and its allies.
As a legend of the skies, you must be the beacon of hope for all, while also rallying your own personal crew of pilots, which includes the bright-eyed young Tasha Seversky, the straight-laced Ellington ‘Professor’ Baxter, and competitive wingman William ‘Noise’ Coster.
Over the course of the first four missions made available in ScreenHub‘s hands-on preview, each gets their own chance to shine.
You learn about Seversky’s past as a circus flyer, and her relationship with her father, who also resides on your home ship. Baxter reveals more about his past connections as a naval aviator, and Coster gets a chance to share his love of music. Your team is real and well-rounded, and it’s for this reason that you’ll strive to succeed across missions that’ll test your mettle.
While the game’s story remains loose, essentially facilitating various sorties and dogfights through the skies and on land, it’s a solid housing, and an impactful way to define the action.
Tight, challenging dogfights add texture to flights of fancy
Once you’re initiated, and you’re able to take to the skies for your first mission, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve reveals its real ace: tight, refined aerial combat that’s fairly challenging, but doubly rewarding.
This series was first established in 1995, with a direct focus on combat flight simulation. Over the years, its core systems have been refined and refined again, to the point where Ace Combat 8 arrives as a very polished, tight and intuitive sim.
It’s all in the dynamism of controls and the abilities you have in your arsenal. Touching the controls lightly allows you to shift and turn your plane one way or another – slowly, at first, and then at great speeds, as you’ll need to dodge and weave mid-air, target enemy planes, and avoid missiles sent your way.
It’s frequently frantic, as missiles can be thrown with short thrift and interrupt your intended flight path. You’ll need to be watching the skies from all sides, diving down and ducking left or right when threats approach, then positioning yourself well as enemies appear on your radar.
The biggest challenge in Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is balancing the need for survival with your drive to succeed quickly. Often a sortie will require you to hold back and defend yourself, chipping away at enemy health with gunfire and rockets, before finally downing them.
In the early missions, there’s plenty of variety in your targets – some speedy and easily manoeuvred jets flying through the air, and some on-ground targets that require you to do controlled, sweeping attacks overhead. This mix is what keeps Wings of Theve feeling sleek and dynamic. There’s always some new system to master, and some new weapon to manipulate.
Ground-based missions are particularly challenging, and exciting, because they require you to strategise as you roam. Air-bound skirmishes feel more like all-out battles – you can switch your strategy up, go as hard as you like, or hang back, based on observation. When you’re dealing with enemies on the ground, you must be more nimble with plane direction and approach, ensuring you’re angling just right to impact the ground and level out before you crash into nearby buildings or mountains.
Puzzling out the direction and strategy behind your latest attack proves satisfying when your rivals are downed, and particularly as you get your mission-ending briefing to congratulate you and haul you along to the next chapter. As your compatriots will tell you, you’re doing what’s right for the good of the world, and you should feel pride in your success.
Abstracting the notion of war in Ace Combat
What’s worth noting is that Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve abstracts the nature of war, favouring airborne flights of fantasy. This is an inspiring game about human resilience, power and connection. It’s a tale of teamwork and camaraderie. It’s not too concerned with harsh reality.
This is still a game about war, however, and it treats the subject matter sensitively in snippets of dialogue about the impact on this fantasy world. But in its efforts to create an approachable ‘in’ for audiences, it leaves plenty vague about your mission, the fictional conflict between Sotoa and Usua, and the intensity of your actions.
You’re downing aircraft and destroying areas of cities, but the consequences of your actions are paved over, at least in the early missions. Being in jets, there’s a narrative assumption that those you down are able to eject themselves and survive. Likewise, there is the occasional radio chatter that indicates that people in populated areas have found shelter, or are otherwise insulated from the war.
Depicting the alternative reality would be too much for a game like this, which is more concerned with the wide-eyed fantasy of courageous fighter pilots, a fantasy that’s seeped into pop culture by way of Top Gun. Flying in a jet should be cool, after all. It’s a dazzling, imagination-sparking concept.
In this early preview, gameplay revealed a moreish palette of dogfight missions, all of which feature that rose-coloured view of fighter pilots and their roles in war.
Early hints in the story suggest Wings of Theve will eventually dive deeply into mythmaking as a tool of propaganda, and that its lighter opening may eventually give way to darker themes and events. But there is a need for balance here, and an equal focus on fun gameplay and light touches of realism for greatest impact.
In any case, those compelled by the Top Gun approach, where peppy human stories and mythologising take a front seat to more realistic depictions of the ugliness of war, will find plenty to appreciate about Ace Combat 8 and its refined approach to aerial combat.
