Ace Combat 8 Climbs to 71% Positive on Steam in Early Access Despite the Belkan War Bonus Row

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is rated "Mostly Positive" on Steam two days into its early access, with 71% of 3,401 reviews positive at 06:38 UTC on 30 September, according to the game's Steam page. On 29 September Eurogamer had it at "Mixed" on just over 1,350 reviews, after PC players found that the pre-order bonus, Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, is a DLC on Steam rather than the standalone game it is on consoles.

Early access for Deluxe Edition pre-orders began on 29 September, and the full launch is on 2 October, Bandai Namco confirmed. This report is built on Steam's public review data, which we read and counted ourselves, Bandai Namco's own pages and Steam notice, and reporting by Eurogamer, PC Gamer and Push Square. We have not played the game.

How have Ace Combat 8's Steam reviews changed since early access began?

The first day was rough. Steam's daily review histogram shows 49 positive and 50 negative reviews on 28 September, when early access had been open for only two hours (it began at 22:00 UTC). The rating recovered as the main wave of players arrived: 71% positive on 29 September, and 80% in the first hours of 30 September.

Early access is a skewed sample. Almost everyone reviewing so far paid extra for the Deluxe Edition or a Joker Flight Pack to play three days early, which makes them a committed crowd. The score will move again when standard-edition buyers arrive on 2 October.

What are Steam players complaining about?

Crashes and performance come first, not the pre-order bonus. We read the 467 most recent English-language negative reviews and the 500 most recent positive ones returned by Steam's review API and counted how many mention each topic.

Crash reports are five times more common in negative reviews than in positive ones, and HOTAS support is the next most lopsided topic, raised in 16% of negative reviews against 3% of positive ones. The median negative reviewer had played 1.75 hours when they posted, against 9.2 hours for positive reviewers, so many of the harshest verdicts come from players who hit a problem early.

Why is The Belkan War a problem on Steam?

On PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, the Ace Combat Zero port is a separate app, as Eurogamer and PC Gamer report. On Steam, the store page now says it is "available as a DLC executable" and that Ace Combat 8 must be installed to use it. Eurogamer reports that the listing previously called it "a standalone application separate from" the new game, and it is not clear when the wording changed.

The practical cost is disk space. PC Gamer measured Ace Combat 8 at 140.24GB on its SSD, with the Zero DLC taking 3.2GB of that. Because it sits inside the new game, Zero also has no achievements or cloud saves of its own on Steam, and both outlets point out that it makes the old game harder to play on a Steam Deck.

Bandai Namco has not given a public reason for the Steam packaging in anything we could find on 30 September. Push Square explains why Zero is a pre-order bonus at all: the licences for its real-world aircraft have expired, so the port cannot be sold on its own. PC Gamer cites a developer livestream on 28 September making the same point, and questions why that stops a separate free package on PC when consoles have one.

What has Bandai Namco said about the crashes?

The Ace Combat team posted a product notice on Steam on 29 September acknowledging "unexpected crashes" in the Steam version and saying the developers are investigating. It gives no patch date. Until then, it suggests two checks: use the graphics driver version the game recommends at launch, and keep at least 16GB free on the SSD where the game is installed, with Windows virtual memory switched on.

The PC requirements are demanding on their own. The Steam store page asks for Windows 11, 150GB of storage on an SSD and a graphics card with hardware ray tracing, with an RTX 2060 or RX 6600 XT as the minimum for 1080p upscaled at 30fps on Low settings.

What should you do before Ace Combat 8 launches on 2 October?

If you want Ace Combat Zero, the deadline is the launch: Bandai Namco's FAQ says every edition pre-ordered before 2 October includes it, and Push Square adds that only the first run of physical copies carries a code. If you want early access, pre-order the Deluxe Edition digitally before launch; Bandai Namco says the edition stays on sale afterwards but without the early access bonuses.

On PC, weigh the store requirements and the crash notice before buying on day one, and plan for the full install if Zero is the reason you are buying. Console players are not affected by the DLC issue.

What we don't know yet

We don't know whether Bandai Namco will split The Belkan War into its own Steam app, when the crash fix will arrive, or whether HOTAS support will be expanded. Critics' reviews are already out, and we will weigh them against Steam players in our evidence-based review once the game has been on general sale for a few days. For everything else arriving this month, see our October 2026 release calendar.