Ace Combat 8: Wings Of Theve Breaks Series Steam Record With Over 52,000 Concurrent Players

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is by far the best PC launch in the series. The game was released on October 2 and peaked at over 52,000 concurrent Steam players a day later, according to SteamDB. That’s nearly four times the 13,758 that Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown managed in 2019, while Assault Horizon only reached 3,795. It also appears to be topping Steam’s global bestseller chart. That’s certainly not bad for a fairly niche series that Bandai Namco revived over seven years after the last mainline game.

The Steam reviews, however, are a little less glowing. The game sits at around 78% positive, which puts it in the “Mostly Positive” bracket. Players seem to enjoy the dogfights, the variety of missions, the campaign and the soundtrack. Most complaints are about performance, with frame rates lower than expected, and opinions on multiplayer are mixed. There was also some confusion around the pre-order bonus, Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, which requires Wings of Theve to be installed as it is treated as DLC due to licensing restrictions. Bandai Namco has yet to share sales figures, and Steam is only one of three platforms, so we don’t know how big the launch officially was. I think a patch or two for frame rates would probably help this review score.