ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE
ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE
Game
Game2020
Project Wingman
Developer Sector D2
Project Wingman is a combat flight-action video game developed by Sector D2 and published by Humble Games. It was released on 1 December 2020 on Microsoft Windows with optional VR support for the whole game. It was later released on 28 October 2021 for the Xbox One, and on 3 October 2023 for the PlayStation 5. Titled Project Wingman: Frontline 59, the PlayStation 5 release includes 6 new missions with optional VR… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
564 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
91
LovedLoved
365 positive · 37 negative
95% range 88–93%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 365 | 37 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 47 | 3 | 72 |
| Lemmy * | 7 | 0 | 24 |
| Mastodon * | 4 | 0 | 5 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
14,357 of 15,145 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Overwhelmingly positive, with many calling it a worthy successor to Ace Combat.
Players overwhelmingly praise Project Wingman as a fantastic arcade flight game that rivals or even surpasses Ace Combat 7. Many highlight the excellent gameplay, graphics, and soundtrack, with one calling it "the best flight action arcade game I've ever played" and another saying it manages to make basic flight control narrowly outperform its predecessor. The game is frequently described as a love letter to Ace Combat that embarrasses Bandai Namco with its quality. [4][8][15]
However, some players criticize the lack of checkpoints, tedious mission briefings, and bugs that can cause softlocks. One player notes that "the lack of checkpoints" turns challenging missions into a test of patience rather than skill, while another reports being softlocked out of the entire campaign due to a well known bug. VR mode is also described as "abandonware" and difficult to run. [21][34][32]
Praised Gameplay and flight mechanics · Graphics and soundtrack · Spiritual successor to Ace Combat
Criticised Lack of checkpoints · Bugs and softlocks · VR mode issues
Summary drafted by an AI model from the 36 reactions it cites ([n] links open each post), then checked by code: every paragraph cites real posts and every quote is verbatim. Written Oct 7, 2026. Method
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Project Wingman sits at 91% positive across 402 opinionated reactions from 4 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Critics, per Wikipedia
Project Wingman received "generally favorable reviews" from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Critics have praised the game for its audio and visual feedback. Polygon's Charlie Hall praised the game for its action that can be commonly found in modern first-person shooters. TheGamer's Sean Murray noted the game's improvement on the Ace Combat formula by allowing players to equip multiple weapons and adding a rogue-like conquest mode, but he criticized the game's lack of mission variety due to being "go here, shoot things".
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 564 · most liked firstWho needs stealth when you have the turn radius of a nickel.. Just in case the plane is not recognized immediatly, it's the PW-MK.I from Project Wingman, cool video game, I recommend it for the planes, the music and the memes.
positive · AI labelView post →Also if we're including Project Wingman it might take the top spot because that game rocks so fucking hard
positive · AI labelView post →We also need some additional language for where one person has done the overwhelming majority of the mecanical and design heavy lifting. Project Wingman had a talented composer and a great voice cast, but the actual *game* part was all one dude, and that shouldn't be minimized.
neutral · AI labelView post →Are there any good indie games on the world's largest video game store? I dunno, are there any leafy trees in the Amazon? From what I've been playing: Stardew Valley, Factorio, Vampire Survivors, Derail Valley, A Hat In Time, Project Wingman, Frostpunk 1 and 2, Portal 2 (technically self-published), Signalis. Voices Of The Void will eventually have a Steam release. All of those games work well on Linux.
neutral · AI labelView post →I hope the Project Wingman dev is still doing stuff, it’s been kinda radio silence for a while. Miracle game.
positive · AI labelView post →Weekend PC Game Deals: Free Half-Life, returning bundles, cozy indies, and more. Big Deals - Remnant II – $34.99 on Steam - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - GOTY Edition – $29.99 on Steam - Victoria 3 – $24.99 on Steam - Grounded – $23.99 on Steam - Half-Life: Alyx – $20.39 on Steam - Way of the Hunter – $19.99 on Steam - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare – $19.79 on Steam - EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 5 – $17.99 on Steam - The Riftbreaker – $17.99 on Steam - Satisfactory – $16.49 on Steam - HROT – $15.99 on…
neutral · AI labelView post →GE-Proton10-33 Released. Proton: - wine bleeding-edge updated - dxvk updated - vkd3d-proton updated - vkd3d updated - dxvk-nvapi updated - fex updated - pulled in upstream misc proton script fixes - pulled in upstream steam_helper fixes Patches: - *NEW:* Added new wineopenvr patches to allow VR to work outside of steam for non-steam games (examples such as GOG version of ProjectWingman, Overload, Star Citizen). Compatibility tested using Meta Quest 3 with WiVRn. To use, setup WiVRn,…
neutral · AI labelView post →By the time a new official Ace Combat game finally surfaces, it'll have some serious competition. Both Project Wingman and Project Red Sun nail it, right down to the cadence of the dialogue.
neutral · AI labelView post →Project Wingman is incredibly fun overall. The main drawback is a lack of a real tutorial and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ default settings. If you want to play this game turn on mouse aiming in the settings. It is actually awful to play without mouse aiming as you can only use the keyboard for movement of your aircraft. Change the "sp module" keybind to something else, preferably Z. It's more convenient that way. All of project wingmans default controls, you'll thank me later: Movement: W - Nose go down S - Nose…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If Ace Combat is Call of Duty, then Project Wingman is Trepang2 What a game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Casually pulling 40G while you backseat WSO wife G-Locs only for you to hear the best antagonist's farewell monologue. Monarch...when you hear the thunder... when the storm...comes for you... remember me.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is probably the best flight action arcade game I've ever played. I say this as an avid AC7 fan. There are a lot of flaws with the game. The terrain is low res if you get too close, the subtitles don't match sometimes. But for all of its flaws, it does something no other flight arcade game has ever done for me. It's more than just woo hero! Save the day! Despite how overcooked/crazy the plot is, it gets the point across that war is bad better than any Ace Combat game, even Zero IMO. This…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →>few thousand meters above the bering strait >in a 40+ plane furball >dodging like 10 missiles at a time >casually saying no to gravity >lighting bandits up with a machine gun that behaves like a railgun >left ear: prez screaming at me to evade + every pilot, including the enemies, glazing my skill >right ear: the greatest OST on planet earth + crimson 1 shouting nonsense it was then, that i realised - i had at last experienced PEAK. this is every pilot's fantasy, multiplied by 10. top gun on…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Better than Ace Combat 7. A fun time, I'd laughed out loud many times in early game when learning to fly & kill with my plane and watching the enemies burst into fireballs and trail downwards. Prezi is cute and I'm glad to have her on my ass 24/7 ♡☆
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Yep. And a lot of the imitators, too. This is Project Wingman, which is basically a whole-ass Ace Combat game developed by (soundtrack and voicework aside) one guy. It is very good.
positive · AI labelView post →Awesome game, I'm not really big on the funny plane games genre, this and Ace Combat 7 are the only games I've played, but this plays really well. Dare I say even better than Ace Combat 7. (In my opinion at least.) It's also looks really graphically impressive AND THE MUSIC??? HELLO??? THEY WERE OUT HERE ABSOLUTELY COOKING. Two seater planes give you wife material in the back seat, and California gets blown up. What more could you want from a video game? You earned my recommendation just…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Do you like Ace Combat? Are you currently suffering from a lack of new Ace Combat games to play? Do you like the colour orange? If the answer to any of these question is yes, get this game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →ngl, the CF-105 sold this for me, but as a spiritual successor to ace combat, I feel it manages to make basic flight control narrowly outperform it's predecessor and carve out its own niche in the genre. BIG TIME recommend.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Weird stuff with steam, proton, and filesystems. So, I discovered weird behavior when trying to play games on an NTFS file system in Linux. When i auto mount the drive through a fstab entry, it is only able to launch Linux native games (I think I read somewhere that this is a permission issue). However, if I mount it through steams "select a drive" option, it works without a problem (so far at least). I assume this is again a permission issue, as when I mount the drive through steam, I get a…
neutral · AI labelView post →Finally finished Project Wingman tonight and, hell yeah. That game rules, so much. I Completed it in VR and scared everyone watching by flying way too close to things as frequently as possible
positive · AI labelView post →I need a new Ace Combat style game soon. Can we get Project Wingman 2 please? I need more Prez. Have some old Ace Combat related art from like... 3 years ago. #rkgk #skeb #acecombat #projectwingman #plane #jets
neutral · AI labelView post →GE-Proton10-33 Released. Proton: - wine bleeding-edge updated - dxvk updated - vkd3d-proton updated - vkd3d updated - dxvk-nvapi updated - fex updated - pulled in upstream misc proton script fixes - pulled in upstream steam_helper fixes Patches: - *NEW:* Added new wineopenvr patches to allow VR to work outside of steam for non-steam games (examples such as GOG version of ProjectWingman, Overload, Star Citizen). Compatibility tested using Meta Quest 3 with WiVRn. To use, setup WiVRn,…
neutral · AI labelView post →Missiles, alcohol, women, men, more missiles, and possibly narcotics. these are the ingredients to make a bomb, but also probably this game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →it's "we have ace combat at home," except better than any ace combat game since 4. sorta like how clancy's bbq chips from aldi are better than anything lay's has in the bbq department.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If Ace Combat is "Cool planes and explosions", then this game is "Kill anything flying to prevent nuclear genocide by the mentally insane" Nonstop action, difficulty that scales HARD, and cool planes and explosions. Play it, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Short Demo: Project Wingman + Opentrack with Neuralnet Tracker. cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/50096730 > Got a new disk and reinstalled my system (Fedora 43). Followed my own guide how to compile Opentrack with the Neuralnet tracker plugin: https://simpit.dev/systems/opentrack/ > > Worked fine but needs some build dependency updates meanwhile, like qt6 instead of qt5. Still amazed how good the Neuralnet tracker with ONNX runtime is. > > Short demo video:…
neutral · AI labelView post →If you like Ace Combat, you are going to like this game. But be prepared, you are going to see a lot of orange.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Crimson 1 is a jackass and Prez is my wife. 11/10 buy this game to immediately feel cool
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Short Demo: Project Wingman + Opentrack with Neuralnet Tracker. cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/50096730 > Got a new disk and reinstalled my system (Fedora 43). Followed my own guide how to compile Opentrack with the Neuralnet tracker plugin: https://simpit.dev/systems/opentrack/ > > Worked fine but needs some build dependency updates meanwhile, like qt6 instead of qt5. Still amazed how good the Neuralnet tracker with ONNX runtime is. > > Short demo video:…
neutral · AI labelView post →Project Wingman is a beautiful loveletter to Ace Combat, and admittedly embarasses Bandai Namco and Project Aces for making a real PC game, rather than a lazy PC port.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pretty great music album. There's neat plane game included too.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Project Wingman producer turned indie flight game producer Matthew "FlyAwayNow" Nguyen (@flyawaynow.bsky.social) joins up with SkywardFM to expand indie flight game series with exclusive content. #indiegame #flightsim www.skywardfm.com/po...
neutral · AI labelView post →Got softlocked out of the entire campaign due to a well known bug in one of the missions where helicopters spawn under the ground. This makes it impossible to complete the mission and thus the rest of the campaign. The developers have completely abandoned this game (no artbook in 4+ years). There is also limited communication to them as well and they likely will never update it. Genuinely fun gameplay but this is seriously something I would never recommend to anyone due to this game breaking…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is my first game of this genre and I'm absolutely hooked, highly atmospheric and extremely fun. Cant wait to try vr mode and experience levels of motion sickness ive only yet dreamed about
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Project Wingman is an excellent alternative to Ace Combat 7 which manages to outdo AC in some ways. Aircraft handling feels better, cockpit view looks better, and the graphics have a stylistic edge. Since other reviews have mostly addressed the pros, I'd like to address some issues which resulted in me logging only 18hrs of playtime in Project Wingman despite racking up over 250hrs in Ace Combat. 1 - mission payouts are frustratingly low. Arcade flight combat games are about achieving your…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Weekend PC Game Deals: Award winners, VR festivals, new choices and more. - Cyberpunk 2077 – $29.99 on Steam - No Man's Sky – $29.99 on Steam - Resident Evil 4 – $29.99 on Steam - HITMAN World of Assassination – $27.99 on Steam - Medieval Dynasty – $26.24 on Steam - BONEWORKS – $23.99 on Steam - GTFO – $23.99 on Steam - VTOL VR – $20.99 on Steam - Tetris Effect: Connected – $19.99 on Steam - Automobilista 2 – $19.99 on Steam - Red Dead Redemption 2 – $19.79 on Steam - Hi-Fi RUSH – $19.12 on…
neutral · AI labelView post →A fantastic indie version of Ace Combat with fun flight mechanics, a story that feels like something out of a war anime, and an excellent soundtrack that just slaps. Play as a mercenary pilot named Monarch, flying for the forces of Cascadia after The Federation has invaded their country. Choose from twenty-one different aircraft you can purchase and unlock with in-game funds to fly in one of the main campaign's twenty-one missions in either campaign mode or free mission mode. Each aircraft…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game. Personally, I like it more than AC7. Plays fantastic in VR, just put the toaster on your head and go, no hassle. I'd even say VR is the way it's meant to be played. Has a really good DLC/Expansion too, about reservist pilots fighting on the other side of the conflict. My only real and very serious criticism is that you can't take Prez with you on Chimera or PW-Mk.1. But I get it, it's a balance thing - sortieing on a super plane AND with a waifu is too much power.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Its good, but the boundaries are stupid. Like my bad for being too good at the game and killing all of the enemies too quickly, then getting bored and hunting for the ones not in the combat zone, but are visible on radar
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The gameplay, graphics, and weapon variety are fantastic. However, the game is held back by its long and uninteresting briefing sequences. My biggest complaint is the lack of checkpoints. Some missions can easily last 15–20 minutes or more, and dying near the end forces you to replay everything from scratch. It turns challenging missions into a test of patience rather than skill.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Project Wingman: Frontline 59 now available for PS5, PS VR2.
neutral · AI labelView post →Tbh I do appreciate that AC8 implicitly tips it’s proverbial hat to Project Wingman a couple times in the campaign. Very much “we see you, and we respect your game”
neutral · AI labelView post →beat crimson 1 on mercenary difficulty. lose to friendly cruiser on conquest mode on easy difficulty. ORANGE
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Sorry for the lack of arts, I have been with poor energy and gaiming a lot. One of said games was Project Wingman. Anyhow, here is my interpretation of Prez from the aforementioned game (best character) #art #digitalart #fanart #ProjectWingman #Prez
neutral · AI labelView post →Excellent game for any aircraft enthusiast. It’s literally just ace combat but on 80x more crack, and you have a mentally deranged yandre in your back seat… and I’m all for it. 10/10 game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So, after listening to @wild-cat144.bsky.social deepthroat Ace Combat until she's got jet fuel dripping down her chin, I have been convinced to try and play **PLANES** a bit. So since i don't own any Ace Combat game, we're gonna do Project Wingman which i hear is very similar. So... PLANES!
neutral · AI labelView post →I enjoyed this game more than Ace Combat 7 and I loved Ace Combat 7. Project wingman takes everything Ace Combat does and cranks up the ridiculous to 11 and it works. It’s an insanely fun game. I enjoyed the lore of the world on fire (the game’s world) the characters, all of it. Was most certainly a very short, very sweet, and very fun game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is really good and similar to AC7. The story served well as a reason for why everything happens, and I thought it was a good choice not to use any real-world conflicts or countries. I'm sick of how in other military games the Russians, Arabs, or Chinese are always the bad guys. I had fun throughout the entire main game. It wasn't until the DLC, specifically the third-to-last mission with the tunnel, that I felt frustrated. The game doesn't use checkpoints, and because of the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I gave up gaming for 3 yrs and planned it would be for life. This was the last game I played and enjoyed it very much. I by God's leading...got back into gaming again. I bought this game and it wasn't as inexpensive as I'd prefer. But it is much funner and easier to play than ace combat 7. With native vr and dynamic aracde playing. Many options and even a affordable dlc. It's a very nice game and fun. It's worth the price and could cost $69.99 and still I'd buy it. Hope they continue to make…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game could be described in literally one word. "Peak." Also, Prez is wife material. We all love Prez. I exclusively picked two seater planes so I could listen to her more.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Project Wingman is a love letter to the Ace Combat franchise, developed by a small indie team. This is the second time I gave them the chance because it was bug-ridden fest which I can't even control my plane but it's fixed now (not sure what happened at that time). It scratched my itch to buy the season pass for AC7 (I finished that game months ago but didn't buy the DLC) which costs more than this game AND the DLC combined (yeah, just ONE season pass). It takes a few time to learn the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ace Combat is so incredibly murderhorny. The only more murderhorny flight game is Project Wingman. The game where you duel your psycho yandere stalker while weaving through the blasts of detonating nuclear bombs in a hellscape created by the war boner of a collapsing colonialist empire.
neutral · AI labelView post →This game deserves far, far, far more attention than it receives. I've played a lot of "sort of just ok" flight games(actually refunded MSFS for that reason, as well as the fact my stick just straight up didn't work with it and only it) and PW isn't one of them. This game is top-tier excellence. The story is emotional, the gameplay is as immersive as it gets, and completing missions and levels feels very much earned, especially after your 14th run on a valley at night, narrowly avoiding…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I think posting can wait when set against real life (still, nice to have the thread), hope things went well. ::: spoiler Shadowrun: Dragonfall I finished the game. As a whole it's a better experience than the previous title, with slightly more interesting writing (both are great), better balance and an expanded format of acting as a shadowrunner. There's only one issue that really affected my enjoyment throughout and that's the amount of large combat scenarios (waves or rooms with 10+ enemies…
neutral · AI labelView post →If you're curious my AC game ranking of the games in the series I've played is: ACZ > ACX > AC7 ≈ Project Wingman* > AC5 > ACAH > (a layer of soup covers the tierlist from here)** > ACJA * Adopted, but beloved ** Everything in JA is orange and the planes are so slow it's like you're flying in soup
positive · AI labelView post →While mostly comparable to Ace Combat, Project Wingman does a decent amount to differentiate itself, plays extremely well, and has a conquest pve as the extra gamemode instead of pvp, so there's a lot of room to replay what is honestly a really well put together arcade aircraft warcrime adventure. Also like AC the story is as insane as a mecha anime. You even get to play as the very clearly not good guys in the DLC to commit more war crimes!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Viper simulator. In vr. Fun characters. I don't need to add much more. Only downside is vr mode is abandonware and its pretty difficult to run even with my specs. Totally worth the chugging on select missions. Make sure to turn visual effects down to low, and cloud rendering down to low. Those are what kills performance the most in vr.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I would like to note that Project Wingman is still being worked and I am still involved in the same capacity, There are MANY plane games being worked on right now, some that are known, some that are not, Don't feel bad if a game didn't get announced today, many more are coming!!!!!!!!!
neutral · AI labelView post →Last week I mentioned wanting to play **Project Wingman** campaigns in VR so I did just that. I started a new campaign on hard, as usual, and with the "Budget Cuts" modifier (less ammo, more damage to everyone and reduced handling) for additional challenge. Difference in ammo counts was a bit shocking at first (I didn't expect it to go THIS low) but it's still doable and fun. Each mission requires more precision and patience, other than that, it's not that different. I also tried playing one…
positive · AI labelView post →I'm going to use the steam review template and add a bit of what I think under each section :- ---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☑ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS the graphics is great but no ray tracing or any thing fancy which is good . ---{ Gameplay }--- ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't the best much better than ace combat 6 & 7 and many other flight games ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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