The Early Access version of ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE, powered by Unreal Engine 5, launched at 7:00 AM on September 29 for players who pre-ordered the Digital Deluxe Edition, while standard edition players will gain access on October 2. In the Early Access version, many players reported frequent crashes under certain PC configurations.
Currently, ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE holds a "Mostly Positive" overall rating on Steam, with 73% positive reviews out of 2,996 user reviews. However, among the 928 Simplified Chinese reviews, only 55% are positive, resulting in a "Mixed" rating.
As an Unreal Engine 5 title, ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE brings to mind another game from a Japanese developer released this year, Marvel Rivals. The poor user reception is largely related to the game's optimization.
A player with 16 hours of playtime fiercely criticized Bandai Namco, calling ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE the worst-optimized game they have ever played. Even the powerful RTX 5090 cannot maintain a stable 60 FPS at 4K resolution with maximum settings and DLSS Quality mode.
Even more frustrating is that "there are major issues with texture loading, with occasional loading delays, and during the mid-mission CG in M4, the aircraft textures become completely blurred."
Players vent their anger at Bandai:
However, Bandai developers seem to have noticed these crash reports and stated in a Steam news post that they are investigating the cause. They also issued a statement saying, "This issue is highly unlikely to be caused by specific hardware configurations," and added, "We are continuing our investigation and will provide more information as soon as we have further details."
The article also advises users experiencing crashes to take the following steps:
Please check your graphics driver version
If you are not using the recommended version, please try updating to the version suggested when launching the game.
As a temporary solution, please ensure that you have at least 16GB of free space on your SSD after installing the game, and that Windows virtual memory is enabled.
Product Announcement
Currently, we have received reports regarding game crashes (forced exits) occurring during gameplay on the Steam version.
Regarding this issue, we are urgently investigating the cause. We deeply apologize for any inconvenience and trouble caused to our players.
Based on our current investigation, this issue is highly unlikely to be caused solely by specific hardware configurations. We are continuing to investigate the exact cause and will share updates with everyone as soon as new information becomes available.
It will take some time to fully identify the cause, but depending on your system environment, checking the following settings may help improve the situation. Please try the steps below:
1. Please check your graphics driver version
Please verify that your current graphics driver is the officially recommended version.
If you are not using the recommended version, please try updating to the version suggested when launching the game.
2. Please check your remaining storage space and virtual memory settings
As a temporary workaround, please ensure that your SSD has at least 16GB of free space available for the game installation, and confirm that Windows virtual memory is enabled.
We are fully committed to resolving these issues and striving to provide a stable and smooth gaming experience for everyone.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused by this issue and appreciate players' understanding. We ask for your continued support for "ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE".