As creative director, Kosuke Itomi, notes, “Up until now, the series has always taken a kind of perspective of talking about the player from a third-person viewpoint. But this time, it’s more like you have the ability to freely change that perspective. We’ve introduced this new element that allows you to advance the story from a first-person perspective.”

While that seemed obvious enough from the reveal trailer, it’s nice to finally have confirmation. It also fits extremely well with the story’s increased focus on your allies, who grow alongside the pilot on their journey. That includes interacting with them in everyday life on board the aircraft carrier, The Endurance.

“Well, the name kind of says it all,” remarks Itomi. “To endure to keep floating. It’s a place where the players can come back and feel safe, that kind of thing, so…These pilots call her ‘Mom’.” This gives the feel of “war movies inspired by historical events,” elevating it beyond a fictional world and war.

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve launches later this year for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. It’s the first new title since 2019’s Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, and takes place in the familiar setting of Strangereal in 2029. The story focuses on pilots aboard the Endurance battling against the Republic of Sotoa to take back the Federation of Central Usea.

Players control a new pilot who takes over the moniker of the “Wings of Theve” from a deceased legend, essentially becoming the new figurehead. They have three allies to assist during dogfights, which promise to be even more intense than either.

As outlined by Ace Combat Wiki (via Ikcatcher), references to Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War have been added. On the surface, this is interesting because it only ever launched on the PlayStation 2 back in 2006, so a contemporary port may be on the way. The fact that it’s part of Ace Combat 8’s listing may point towards its availability as a pre-order bonus.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Bandai Namco has offered such benefits, much less in the Ace Combat franchise. Pre-orders for Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, for instance, included a copy of Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War.

However, that’s not all. A closed network test is also seemingly on the cards for Ace Combat Online, which could be Ace Combat 8’s online PvP mode. While these updates don’t indicate a release timing, it wouldn’t be surprising to see an update at a major showcase like State of Play (rumored for the week of February 12th).

“Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown has reached its 7th anniversary since its release, and has surpassed 7 million units sold worldwide,” wrote Kono (via Google Translate). “We are deeply grateful that so many people have continued to play the game for so long. We look forward to seeing you again in the next sky.”

It looks like it took Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown just a year to sell a million copies, since Bandai Namco had last touted having sold more than 6 million copies back in January 2025. This newest milestone has likely pushed overall sales for the Ace Combat franchise to over 22 million.

In the meantime, Bandai Namco has also announced the next title in the franchise, dubbed Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve. The game was announced during The Game Awards 2025, and takes place in the year 2029 on the franchise’s traditional setting of Strangereal.

More details about the upcoming title were revealed through an interview last month, where Kono revealed that development on Wings of Theve had started back in 2020. According to producer Manabu Shimomoto, the upcoming title will also hang on to what he described as the three pillars that form the identity of the franchise: the exhilaration of freely flying through the sky, the excitement of shooting down enemies based on your own judgment, and sense of accomplishment from overcoming challenges. “We kept the things fans have loved for 30 years, and thought about what changes would please them,” he said.

Considering the power of modern hardware, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve will also be making use of more modern technologies. The title’s development involves using a new in-house engine that will work alongside Unreal Engine 5 to generate the in-game clouds. The new in-house engine, dubbed Cloudly, was made to replace third-party tool truSky.

On the storytelling front, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve will also feature first-person cutscenes that all take place in-engine, allowing players to grasp finer details of the world around them while they converse with other characters. The feature was described as giving players the sense of having a key role in the story. “By deliberately looking away, you may discover new things, such as what other characters are doing in the background while the conversation is happening,” Kono said about the new cutscenes.

The story of Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve will revolve around the player taking on the eponymous callsign of “Wings of Theve”, and working alongside the crew of the refugee ship Endurance. The ship itself is also home to refugees from the Federation of Central Usea after it suffered from a recent attack. The title doesn’t yet have a release date, but is expected to come out this year on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

While the studio wanted to ensure that it was making a brand new title that would go toe-to-toe against any other big-budget release, they also spoke about how it would see the return of aspects of the Ace Combat series that its fans have enjoyed. Shimomoto explained that, “We kept the things fans have loved for 30 years, and thought about what changes would please them,” before going on to explain the three pillars that form the identity of the Ace Combat franchise—the exhilaration of freely flying through the sky, the excitement of shooting down enemies based on your own judgment, and sense of accomplishment from overcoming challenges.

As for some of the newer things that we will see in Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, it includes a brand new engine that will work in tandem with Unreal Engine 5 to help generate the in-game clouds. This new engine, dubbed Cloudly, was created in-house to serve as a replacement to third-party tool trueSKY, and Kono noted that it was useful for the team to help create more realistic clouds with layers and different characteristics.

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve will also feature real-time cinematic cutscenes that take place in the first-person perspective. This means that, when in a cutscene from their character’s perspective, players will also have the choice to move their heads around to take in some of the environmental storytelling that might be present in the background. While this doesn’t add too much to the core gameplay of the upcoming title, the feature was described as being added to help provide players with a feeling that they have a key role to play in the story. Going further, there will also be cockpit cameras for some cutscenes that take place mid-flight.

“By deliberately looking away, you may discover new things, such as what other characters are doing in the background while the conversation is happening,” Kono said.

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve was unveiled with a trailer that provided a rundown of the general premise, with the player taking on the role of the eponymous “Wings of Theve” in the year 2029. The protagonist is one of the pilots on the refugee ship Endurance, which is also populated by refugees of the Federation of Central Usea after it was recently attacked. The game is being developed by Project Aces, and while a solid release date for the game hasn’t yet been announced, it does have a 2026 window, when it will come to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

For more details about the Ace Combat series, check out our review of the previous title—Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown.

And we’re going to kick things off, as you may have imagined, by going all the way back to the series’ inception, with the release of its first instalment in 1995. Interestingly enough, the series debuted with a game that was titled Air Combat, not Ace Combat, releasing as a launch title for the original PlayStation. Originally, it was supposed to be a port of an arcade title that Bandai Namco (then known as Namco) had released a couple of years ago, but after the development team realized during development that the PS1 wasn’t powerful enough to be able to run the original game well enough, they decided to just make an entirely new game for the console from scratch.

Air Combat’s arcade-style flight combat gameplay endeared itself to many right out the gate. The game was well received by critics, which was reflected in solid sales as well- solid enough, in fact, that the franchise’s debut outing is still it’s third highest selling game to date, nearly thirty years on from its release. Air Combat was successful enough, in fact, that its publisher quickly greenlit a sequel. It launched not long after, releasing as Ace Combat 2 in 1997, just a couple of years after its predecessor.

One of the biggest things that drove Ace Combat 2’s development, interestingly enough, was designer Masanori Kato’s dissatisfactions with the visuals of the original game, and that, in turn, meant that upping the ante with the production values was one of the development team’s central goals while Ace Combat 2 was in the works. It’s fair to say that they succeeded. Upon its release, the sequel was praised by critics and players alike for not only its significantly improved visuals, but also greater variety in missions, more action-packed flight simulation gameplay, and more, which, combined with solid sales yet again, meant that Ace Combat had quickly established itself as an important IP for Namco.

The series’ third outing came not long afterward, as you may have guessed. Launching after another couple of years in 1999, Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere was the series’ final outing on the PS1- and, in many ways, also one of the series’ more experimental and weirdly ambitious games, especially for its time. In retrospect, there’s plenty that sets Ace Combat 3 apart, but series fans will tell you that its focus on story is one of the chief reasons. Ace Combat as a franchise has become strongly associated with its emphasis on story over the years, and many will tell you that Ace Combat 3 was the game that truly kicked that off in many respects.

The game also did so in a new, near-future setting (which, incidentally, also let you fly spacecraft in addition to your regular planes), while it also went on to become notorious for the stark differences between its Japanese and western releases. The latter, you see, ended up having to leave a great deal on the cutting floor due to severe budget constraints, which means there’s a significant portion of Ace Combat 3 content that is present in its Japanese version, but not its international one- most prominent being a branching storyline that changed based on players’ actions.

Understandably enough, Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere didn’t enjoy the best critical reception in western markets, and that was reflected in its sales. In North America in particular, the game underperformed, and in the end, its total sales were lower than Namco had hoped they would be. Thankfully, that wasn’t the end of the series. In fact, just a couple of years later, Ace Combat made its debut on the PlayStation 2, with Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies coming out in 2001. And as Ace Combat faithful will gladly tell you, this one ranks as probably one of the series’ most pivotal (and best) games.

There’s so much that we now strongly associate with the Ace Combat franchise in general that can be traced back to Shattered Skies. It was, for instance, the first game in the series to be developed by an internal development team dedicated entirely to the Ace Combat franchise, called Project Aces, which is still responsible for developing Ace Combat games to this day. On top of that, Ace Combat 4, which was designed as a reboot after the relative dip that was Electrosphere, was also the first game to establish the Strangereal setting that the series still uses to this day. For those unfamiliar, Strangereal is the name of the fictional universe where the Ace Combat franchise is largely set. Strangereal’s Earth is very similar to the real world in many ways, but things such as countries, the world’s history, weaponry and technology, and more tend to be quite different.

Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies’ attempt to reset the franchise and bring it back on track turned out to be a successful one. It enjoyed widespread critical acclaim, drawing praise for everything from its story to its action-packed linear gameplay to how it leveraged the PS2’s more powerful hardware to deliver top-notch visuals (for the time, at least). In addition to being a critical hit, it was also a big commercial success. In fact, with over 2.64 million units sold, it was the series’ highest selling game until Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown overtook it just a few years ago.

Given how well Ace Combat 04 was received, it’s no surprise looking back that the series’ next game was the kind of iterative sequel that it turned out to be. Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War launched for the PS2 in 2004, a little over a couple of years after its predecessor came out, and by and large, the consensus was that much like Ace Combat 04, Ace Combat 5 was an excellent combat flight sim- for many of the same reasons, in fact. Ace Combat 5 was happy to be a “more of the same” kind of sequel, building on the previous entry’s foundations with a largely unambitious but well-made and compelling experience. From a sales perspective, it certainly wasn’t the kind of success that Shattered Skies was, but it still sold well enough in its own right.

From that point forward, Bandai Namco also opened up the Ace Combat franchise up to beyond just mainline numbered releases, with several spinoffs releasing over the next few years- like, for starters, top down 2D shooter Ace Combat Advance, which released for the GBA in 2005, or Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War for the PS2 and Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception for the PlayStation Portable, both of which launched in 2006. A few more spinoffs followed in the years afterward- but not before Bandai Namco returned with another mainline numbered entry, with Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation releasing in 2007. This one, however, was another dip for the franchise.

Ace Combat 6 released exclusively for the Xbox 360, which, combined with relatively less enthused reception from critics and players compared to its predecessors, resulted in lower sales than Bandai Namco would have expected. In fact, to date, the game hasn’t managed to breach 1 million units sold even today, and is still the series’ lowest selling mainline entry to date. It doesn’t enjoy the best reputation among fans either. Though fun enough to play in its own right, Ace Combat 6 is deemed by many to be one of the series’ less engaging experiences, whether that’s because of its disappointing story, a handful of annoying design choices, or something else.

Given its unequivocal failure from a commercial point of view, it was no surprise that Fires of Liberation turned out to be Ace Combat’s last mainline game for a long, long time. Several more Ace Combat spinoffs were released by Bandai Namco in the years afterward, but there was a period where it seemed like the series’ stock was plummeting constantly, and whether or not it would ever claw its way back up was anyone’s guess- though, at the time, the smart money would have been on no.

That was thanks in large part to the fact that the series felt like it just didn’t know what it wanted to be with some of the spinoff instalments it put out in the years that followed. In 2010 came Ace Combat: Joint Assault, another PlayStation Portable spinoff, which was notable for being the first ever Ace Combat game to be set in the real world- though there really wasn’t much else that stood out about it. A year later, we got Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, which was also set in the real world, but in its own continuity separate from Joint Assault. Billed as a gritty, realistic take on the Ace Combat formula, Assault Horizon was ultimately an unremarkable, overly linear game that did little to bring Ace Combat back to its glory days. That same year, Bandai Namco also release Ace Combat Assault Horizon Legacy, which, confusingly enough, had absolutely nothing to do with Assault Horizon, and was instead a remake of Ace Combat 2- and, well, it wasn’t terrible. But at the end of the day, it wasn’t anything beyond unremarkable either, sadly enough.

Then came Ace Combat Infinity in 2014, and somehow, it was an even lower low for the series. Infinity was a freemium, multiplayer-focused game that came out in 2014 as a PlayStation 3 exclusive, which is just an awful combination of bad decisions. Unsurprisingly, it was lambasted by critics almost unanimously, and for many, it became a symbol of the state that Ace Combat had found itself in- a state of complete and utter ruin, to the point where it was being salvation. Or so we thought at that point, at any rate.

Impossibly enough, in spite of the widespread criticism it endured, Ace Combat Infinity somehow managed to be a commercial success for Bandai Namco, which led to the publisher greenlighting a new numbered entry, something that many had though was never going to happen again. Twelve years after the series’ last mainline entry, in 2019, Bandai Namco released Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, and without a shadow of doubt, proved to be worth the wait. A strong campaign, a wealth of modes, solid multiplayer gameplay, VR support, and more came together in one of the series’ strongest outings, and the acclaim it garnered also led to impressive sales. In fact, Ace Combat 7 went on to sell over 4 million units (as of 2022), which makes it the series’ highest selling game by far.

Which brings us to now, at a point where the series’ future is once again looking secure. Ace Combat 7 did an excellent job of bringing the beloved IP back into the limelight, and with its critical and commercial success, Bandai Namco has also reinvested into the franchise. In 2022, in fact, the company established Bandai Namco Aces as the new studio to lead development on all things Ace Combat, while the year prior, it was also announced that Ace Combat 8 was being developed in collaboration with support studio ILCA, and that it would be built on Unreal Engine 5.

It has, of course, been a handful of years since then, which begs the question- just where is Ace Combat 8? Bandai Namco has been working on it for a while, so are we to assume that we’re approaching the time where it will be officially unveiled? Prominent leaker Midori recently took to Twitter and claimed that the flight combat series’ next mainline instalment was indeed Bandai Namco’s next big game- but what exactly does that tell us about when it’ll come out? Is it being lined up for a release within next year or so? And if so, does that mean we should expect an announcement sometime soon?

At this point, all we can do is speculate- but there’s little doubt that there’s no shortage of excitement around what the future holds for the Ace Combat franchise. Hopefully, Bandai Namco will tell us more about exactly what that will entail sooner rather than later.

As reported by Twinfinite, Ace Combat brand director Kazutoki Kono has confirmed that in order to realize the creative and technical vision the development team has for Ace Combat 8 (or whatever they end up calling the game), the title is being developed using Unreal Engine 5.

Since the official reveal of Unreal Engine 5 last year, a number of major games have been confirmed to be using Epic’s next-generation engine for development. These include the likes of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, Dragon Age 12: The Flames of Fate, BioShock 4, State of Decay 3, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl, The Coalition’s upcoming projects, and possibly even The Outer Worlds 2.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, unlike previous games in the series doesn’t run on Project Aces’ proprietary engine but instead utilizes Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4 and the results are pretty satisfying. The very first thing we want to talk about the cloud technology in the game. Clouds are no longer just there for artistic reasons but they also serve as a gameplay mechanics. The clouds have physics parameters which affect the drag and acceleration of the aircraft thereby creating air pressure difference resulting into turbulence. Besides your visibility getting limited and the formation of water vapours on glass surfaces, the aircraft’s missile tracking system will also get affected. So, the clouds act as physical barriers in the game and tech implemented here is definitely something that excites us for future Ace Combat games. Furthermore, it’s great to see cloud tech treated with utmost care in some recent games. We had some bright examples from last year in the form of Red Dead Redemption 2 and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey which pushed cloud rendering in different ways and it’s great to see Ace Combat 7 pushing it by giving its own unique spin.

The power of Unreal Engine 4 has also allowed developers to render some incredible looking weather systems. Lightning, rain along with various volumetric effects like wind and alpha effects like fire all look great. Seeing enemy aircrafts getting blown to bits is as satisfying as seeing the smoke trail formed by incoming or outgoing missiles. Aircrafts, too, have been meticulously crafted with detailed interiors and material shaders, giving them an authentic look and feel. Thanks to physical based rendering and advancements in lighting tech, Ace Combat 7 can be look beautiful at times.

However, there are a couple of areas where Ace Combat 7 falters technically. First of all, an intensive AA solution is completely lacking across all three versions of the game. What we have in place is a higher quality FXAA solution in place and to be honest it don’t do a great job at smoothening the edges. This results into inconsistent image quality at times as one can clearly see jaggies on nearby objects like the aircraft’s wings. Next up is the pop in issue, which also affects all three versions.  The map size in Ace Combat 7 is huge and the various objects in them are pretty detailed but given that this is a game that is not really pushing the hardware, we were not expecting pop in issues.

Now, let’s take a look at how the game runs on the PC, PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. As always, let’s take a look at the PC version first. The developers recommend an Intel Core i5-7500, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 and 8GB of memory. We used our usual test PC which includes a GTX 1080Ti, 16GB of GDDR4 memory and Ryzen 1700 CPU. The graphical settings include v-sync, frame rate limit, bloom, motion blur, scaling of resolution up to 200%, anti-aliasing, shadow quality, texture quality, effects quality, post processing and screen space reflection quality. As expected, we had no issues running the game on our test PC at a rock solid 60 frames per second.

On the console front, the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X have no 4K checkerboard or a dynamic resolution in place. Instead, the game is locked at 1080p resolution. Both versions target 60fps and for the most part manage to run at that standard. However, we are quite disappointed that the Xbox One X manages only a mere 1080p resolution. The console is definitely more powerful to run a game like Ace Combat 7 in full native 4K resolution and 60fps. Regardless, this is the current situation on the Xbox One X and to be honest, the overall situation on Microsoft’s console is rather underwhelming. Both versions are largely similar in terms of core assets and other parameters, so we are not sure what went wrong with the Xbox One X build.

In comparison with the PC build, both versions suffer from reduced texture filtering and shadow quality. Furthermore, the ability to scale the resolution up to 200% on PC manages to reduce the aliasing issues by a bit. In conclusion, the PC version of Ace Combat 7 is clearly the best version to play. With its superior rendering resolution and better visual parameters, it’s a cut above the console versions. The PS4 Pro version on the other hand does what it’s expected to do. A solid 1080p and 60fps experience coupled with great visual parameters. The Xbox One X version is not bad by any means but it clearly lacks the focus that was given to the other two platforms. Perhaps, Project Aces invested much of their time into the PS4 version due to additional VR support. Whatever the reason, the Xbox One X is a much more capable machine but it clearly wasn’t put to full use in this game.

If you destroy the Ace planes (basically special enemies), you will unlock skins for your aircraft. It’s recommend that you play the game in Hard mode since some Aces won’t appear in other difficulty modes.

The video below will guide you how you can find them all. Also, if you unlock all of them, you will get the X-02S Strike Wyvern.

ALL ACES:

• MiG-21 Pyro
• MiG-29 Jester
• F-16C Bayonet
• F-15J Ronin
• F-15C Fang
• F-14D Kitten
• Typhoon Faucon
• F-15E Gazelle
• F/A-18F Spider
• Gripen E Louveteau
• Rafale M Chasseur
• Su-33 Ibis
• MIR-2000 Foudre
• A-10C Buffle
• Su-34 Walrus
• MiG-31 Comet
• Su-47 Gadfly
• F-2A Bogen
• Su-37 Serpent
• Su-35S Axeman
• F-35C Mantis
• YF-23 Lynx
• F-22A Tempest
• Su-57 Calamity

For more Ace Combat 7 guides, check out the following links:

Ace Combat 7 Guide – How To Unlock All Named Aircraft?

Ace Combat 7 Guide – How To Use Flares And Earn MRP, Money Quickly

The latest weekly Media Create reports for video game software and hardware sales in Japan for the week ending January 20th are in, and Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, which had strong first week sales in the UK as well, has debuted on top of the charts, with over 202,000 units sold. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, which was on top of the charts last week, has been pushed down to second place as a result, with sales of almost 89,000 units.

Elsewhere, the PS4 remaster of Yakuza 4 also had a decent debut. With sales of over 18,000 units, it debuted in fourth position. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate continued to sell strongly, taking the third spot, with over 49,000 units sold. Other Nintendo Switch exclusives including Super Mario Party, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Pokemon Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Eevee!, and Splatoon 2 also continued exhibiting lasting sales, with all of them figuring in the top 10.

On the hardware front, the Nintendo Switch was he top selling console for the week once again, moving over 71,000 units (not far off from last week’s 78,000 figure), while the PS4 collectively sold roughly 16,000 units (base model and PS4 Pro sales combined), down slightly from 18,000 units sold last week.

You can check out the full charts below.

Software Sales (followed by lifetime sales)

1. [PS4] Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (Limited Edition Included) (Bandai Namco, 01/17/19) – 202,379 (New)
2. [NSW] New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (Nintendo, 01/11/19) – 88,840 (255,143)
3. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo, 12/07/18) – 49,533 (2,726,273)
4. [PS4] Yakuza 4 (Sega, 01/17/19) – 18,440 (New)
5. [NSW] Super Mario Party (Bundle Version Included) (Nintendo, 10/05/18) – 16,752 (971,945)
6. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo, 04/28/17) – 15,062 (2,085,952)
7. [NSW] Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! / Let’s Go, Eevee! (Bundle Editions Included) (Nintendo, 11/16/18) – 12,351 (1,472,298)
8. [NSW] Dragon Quest Builders 2 (Square Enix, 12/20/18) – 11,490 (210,493)
9. [NSW] Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (Bundle Version Included) (Microsoft, 06/21/18) – 11,107 (573,451)
10. [NSW] Splatoon 2 (Bundle Version Included) (Nintendo, 07/21/17) – 9,469 (2,903,350)
11. [PS4] Dragon Quest Builders 2 (Square Enix, 12/20/18) – 9,330 (206,392)
12. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Limited Edition Included) (Nintendo, 03/03/17) – 7,731 (1,263,023)
13. [PS4] Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition (Bandai Namco, 01/17/19) – 7,474 (New)
14. [PS4] PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG Corporation, 01/17/19) – 7,447 (New)
15. [PS4] Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition (Limited Edition Included) (Bandai Namco, 01/11/19) – 7,446 (48,955)
16. [NSW] Go Vacation (Bandai Namco, 12/27/18) – 5,151 (47,862)
17. [NSW] Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition (Limited Edition Included) (Bandai Namco, 01/11/19) – 4,598 (31,186)
18. [PS4] Judgment (Sega, 12/13/18) – 4,527 (244,820)
19. [PS4] Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII (SIE, 10/12/18) – 4,341 (524,140)
20. [NSW] Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum ‘n’ Fun (Bandai Namco, 07/19/18) – 3,720 (294,679)

Hardware Sales (followed by last week’s sales)

1. Switch – 71,139 (78,056)
2. PlayStation 4 – 9,505 (12,012)
3. PlayStation 4 Pro – 6,958 (6,289)
4. New 2DS LL – 3,767 (3,954)
5. PlayStation Vita – 1,755 (1,711)
6. New 3DS LL – 1,514 (1,483)
7. 2DS – 158 (268)
8. Xbox One X – 94 (38)
9. Xbox One – 24 (12)

[4Gamer (via Gematsu)]

Ace Combat 7 has a ton of unlockables in the form of 24 aircraft which you can get hold of by performing specific actions within the game. Let us guide you on how you can find them all. If you are interested in reading more guides on the game, you can check out our and best tips and tricks, and all about using flares and earning money quickly.

Unlocking Named Aircrafts

There are 24 Named Aircraft in Ace Combat 7. All of them have specific requirements, so, let’s take a look at how you can find them all.

Mission 1:

MiG-21 PYRO – Unlocked by destroying the third fleet of enemies. You need to use 4AAM, 6AAM, or 8AAM.

Mission 2:

MiG-29 JESTER – Unlocked by destroying Radar Vehicles and the Control Tower. You need to do before the UAVs come in again.

Mission 3:

F-16C BAYONET: Shoot the enemies within 90 seconds.

Mission 4:

F-15J RONIN: Until radio silence gets over, fly below 650 feet.

Mission 5:

F-15C FANG: Weapons must be disabled and you need to make it through with a minimum of 75% damage.

Mission 6:

F-14D KITTEN: In the West Base, fly through the tunnel.

Mission 7:

TYPHOON FAUCON: Destroy all non-TGT enemies.

Mission 8:

F-15E GAZELLE: Destroy all oil facilities before you run out of time.

Mission 9:

F/A-18F SPIDER: Destroy all Radio Tower but before you do that wipe out at least half of non-TGT enemies.

Mission 10:

GRIPEN E LOUVETEAU: Destroy all SAMS.

Mission 11: 

SU-33 IBIS: You need to pull off a stunt. Make it through the gap in platforms towards the Northeast side.

RAFALE M CHASSEUR: Destroy all aircraft on the platforms.

Mission 12:

SU-34 WALRUS: Stonehenge shouldn’t get hit at all.

MIR-2000-5 FOUDRE: Fly under the Stonehenge.

A-10C BUFFLEL: Destroy all A-10C Thunderbolt IIs.

Mission 13:

MIG-31 COMET: Destroy Solis as fast as you can.

Mission 14:

SU-47 GADFLY: See that canyon? Fly through it.

Mission 15:

SU-37 SERPENT: Earn 5000 points more than the standard requirement.

F-2A BOGEN: Destroy the Aegis.

Mission 16:

SU-35S AXEMAN: Earn 15,000 points more than the standard requirement.

Mission 17:

F-35C MANTIS: Fly and remain close to the driver rail.

Mission 18:

YF-23 LYNX: Kill and destroy everyone. Reach Shilage Castle in 2 minutes.

Mission 19: 

SU-57 CALAMITY: Earn 20,000 points in first section.

F-22A TEMPEST: Earn 20,000 points in first section.