Ace Combat 8 Beginner Guide: Flight Controls & Early Sorties
Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve launched on Steam on 1 Oct 2026. Switch to Expert controls for independent roll and pitch, learn the role-based aircraft tree (Fighter, Multirole, Attacker, Electronic Warfare), and spend early MRP on useful multiroles before chasing the 1,000,000-MRP post-campaign X-40 Nightmare.
Start With the Right Controls
Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is developed by Bandai Namco Aces Inc. and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc., and it released on Steam on 1 Oct 2026. If you are coming in fresh, the single most important early decision is how your aircraft responds to stick input.
The two control philosophies are Standard and Expert. Standard keeps the airframe predictable for newcomers by coupling roll and turn together, but it caps what you can do in a dogfight. Expert separates roll authority from pitch authority, which is what lets you bank hard, invert, and slice into vertical high-G turns to break a missile lock. Once you are comfortable with the cockpit view, make the switch: the early campaign is forgiving enough to learn Expert without handing you a loss.
Energy management matters more than raw speed. Climbing burns speed, diving builds it, and sustained turns bleed it. When a bandit sits on your tail, do not just pull the nose harder. Use a high-G break turn, bleed the pursuer past your flight path, then re-light the afterburners and rebuild kinetic energy for the next pass.
Understand How the Campaign Is Shaped
The campaign is built around a Prologue followed by numbered missions, 31 sorties in total, and it closes on the finale, Mission 30 "Song of Wings." Knowing this up front changes how you pace yourself: the run is long enough that hoarding MRP and delaying purchases is usually smarter than buying the first aircraft you unlock.
As you clear sorties you will also notice the Assault Records menu filling up. There are 83 Assault Records in all. Most come from special enemy units that appear automatically during the campaign, but 31 of them are conditional named aces that only show up on Veteran difficulty or higher once you satisfy a specific trigger. Downing those conditional aces is what unlocks unique paint schemes, so do not assume a record list that looks empty on your first clear is actually empty.
Read the Aircraft Tree by Role
The Aircraft Tree is where you spend campaign MRP, and it is organized by job rather than by a flat ladder. The four roles are Fighter, Multirole, Attacker, and Electronic Warfare:
- Fighter aircraft favor air-to-air combat and interception.
- Multirole aircraft flex between air and surface targets and are the safest generalist pick for a mixed mission.
- Attacker aircraft focus on ground, ship, and other surface targets.
- Electronic Warfare aircraft provide jamming and squadron support rather than raw damage.
You start out in the F/A-18C Hornet, which is deliberately carrier-capable and flexible enough to carry you through the early sorties. Resist the urge to buy every node that appears. A stat bump on the tree does not always shorten your clear times as much as unlocking a special weapon that actually fits the mission you are flying.
Spend MRP With the Endgame in Mind
A few purchases are worth planning around early. The upper end of the standard tree is anchored by the F-22A, the F-35C, and the Su-57, each costing 550,000 MRP. Those three matter beyond their own performance, because the post-campaign X-40 Nightmare costs 1,000,000 MRP and only becomes available after you already own one of them. If the X-40 is your goal, reaching one of those three aircraft before the finale puts you in position to buy it the moment the story ends.
Other post-campaign aircraft include the FA-36 Game and the EA-36 Barricader, each at 750,000 MRP. The F-14A Tomcat is bonus content rather than a normal tree unlock, and the ADFX-02 Morgan -PIXY- is tied to the Premium Ace Pass rather than the regular MRP branches.
Pick Special Weapons That Match the Target
When you are choosing a loadout, think about what the mission actually throws at you rather than defaulting to one missile type. Community consensus points to three workhorse special weapons: the Stand-Off Dispenser (SOD), which players call overpowered with a large blast radius; the LACM cruise missile, which one-taps Land Destroyers, Aegis ships, and other warships and is especially strong against land battleships; and QAAM, which is the reliable choice against high-mobility named aces. If a sortie is heavy on ships, bring the LACM. If it is crawling with agile aces, bring the QAAM.
Know the Game at a Glance
Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is developed by Bandai Namco Aces Inc. and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc., and it released on Steam on 1 Oct 2026. The campaign runs a Prologue followed by 30 numbered missions, 31 sorties in all, and closes on the finale, Mission 30 "Song of Wings." Knowing that shape up front helps you pace your first run: you do not need to buy everything immediately, and the endgame aircraft wait until after the credits.
Alongside the campaign, the Assault Records menu tracks 83 entries. Most fill in naturally as you fight special enemy units, but 31 are conditional named aces that only appear on Veteran difficulty or higher and unlock paint schemes when downed. You do not need to hunt these on your first clear, but it helps to know they exist so you are not surprised by an incomplete record list later. The F/A-18C Hornet you start with is a capable multirole, so focus on learning flight controls and target reading before worrying about the endgame aircraft.
For a deeper look at progression, see the Aircraft Tree Unlock Route and the Fast MRP Farming Guide.