Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is off to the series' best PC launch by a wide margin. The game came out on October 2 and peaked at over 52,000 concurrent Steam players a day later, according to SteamDB. That is nearly four times the 13,758 that Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown managed in 2019, while Assault Horizon only reached 3,795. It also apparently topped Steam's global top sellers chart. That's certainly not bad for a fairly niche series that Bandai Namco revived more than seven years after the last mainline game.

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 like the dogfights, the mission variety, the campaign, and the soundtrack. Most complaints are about performance, with frame rates lower than people expected, and opinions on multiplayer are mixed. There was also some confusion around the pre-order bonus, Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, which needs Wings of Theve installed because it's treated as DLC due to licensing restrictions. Bandai Namco hasn't shared sales figures yet, 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 the frame rates would probably help that review score.