Of Rumors, Ghosts, and Aces: on Ace Combat 8's Storytelling Potential
"Lies, conspiracies, and gossip. They make up the dense fog that obscures what's really going down in this war." In this post-truth world of influencers, algorithms and doomscrolling, what could be a better introduction line?
Have you ever read a history book and wondered, how did people react to this news back then? For those watching these events from the outside - for the New Yorker opening up a newspaper in 1914 and seeing German troops crossing into France - what did they feel? Is there a feeling to having witnessed history? Something that told them the world had just changed before their eyes? Of course, this is an extremely subjective question. Feelings vary from person to person; some may have remained blissfully unaware of the sheer scale of the tragedy the paper and ink were trying to warn them thereof; some may not have cared. There is no definitive answer.
But I did get an answer.
The events of February 24th, 2022 are permanently etched into my memory. It was around midnight over here when the instant information machine of our contemporary world carried news of just such an unfolding tragedy an ocean and two seas away.
I remember that sinking feeling distinctively. The world as we'd known for the past 20 years had been irreversibly changed, and millions of people would suffer as a result. Though far removed from any danger, I couldn't sleep that night. I can only imagine what those living in Europe must've felt. I cannot imagine what Ukrainians, whose homeland had just been turned into the stage of a full-scale land war in Europe overnight, must have gone through. If you're a military aviation enthusiast - and let's face it, if you're reading this you probably are - then you must've felt quite sorry for the Ukrainian Air Force during those days. Facing a numerically and technologically superior foe, its pilots had been put in a hopeless situation, and their aircraft would certainly have been priority targets on the ground. With Desert Storm as the closest example in my mind, I must admit I didn't expect the PS ZSU to achieve much.
The very next day proved me dead wrong. Seeing footage of Ukrainian Fulcrums circling over Kyiv was surreal; faced with overwhelming odds, their pilots showcased incredible resolve and bravery.
And, almost as soon as these videos appeared, the rumors started.
The "Ghost of Kyiv". A legend originating in the amorphous gears of the social media machine, for all we knew at the time it could've been started by a random internet denizen who had played too much Ace Combat. But whatever the cause of the initial spark, it spread like wildfire; within days, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense itself was echoing the legend, feeding social media with photos of the supposed ace and confirming their exploits.
Of course, a legend is all it ever was. The notion of an ace pilot in today's air combat arena is preposterous, let alone one who's fighting for the completely outmatched side. I remember feeling a blend of anger and sadness at the existence of this legend; at the time, I felt as if it diminished the actual valor and courage Ukrainian pilots were putting on display. Why did they need to have five kills in order to be recognized? In the situation they were in, surviving was already more than impressive; choosing to take off and face none other than the mighty VKS in combat was already heroic. Managing to score just one air-to-air victory would have been nothing short of legendary.
But in desperate times, people need hope. For better or worse, we live in a world which is completely permeated by social media; in the midst of the chaos, confusion and suffering, the people of Ukraine needed a symbol to rally around, something to cheer on; they needed a hero. And, in a world in which appearances matter more than ever, Ukraine needed something to show the world its resolve.
And so over time, I began to respect the concept as a propaganda piece. It had managed to bring worldwide attention to the Ukrainian Air Force's incredible feat of survival, and in a way, it was the perfect symbol for their pilots: something which by all accounts should have been dead, and yet, it persists. The "Ghost" defending Kyiv was the PS ZSU itself.
On late April 2022, in an effort to counter rumors the famed ace had been killed, the Ukrainian Air Force dropped the curtain on the story, admitting its status as a "superhero-legend"; it cannot be killed, for it symbolizes their pilots as a collective. Thanks to a 2024 Kyiv Post article, we now know the rumor had been crafted and spread by the Ukrainian military itself.
Fabricated heroes and amplified stories in times of war are, of course, nothing new. Perhaps one of the reasons I'd felt so shocked and uncomfortable at the Ghost of Kyiv is precisely because I'd seen it coming - well, kind of. Allow me to elaborate. Many years ago, when I was in high school, I went through a phase many readers will be familiar with, and which those more creatively inclined might perhaps even relate to: I wanted to write my own Ace Combat-inspired story. 16-year-old me would have been offended at it being called a fanfiction, but really, looking back at it that would be an apt description.
The thing is, I've always been a massive nerd for the history of air combat, so I wanted to write something a bit more grounded - and the 21st century is no place for an ace. It doesn't take an aerospace engineering degree to realize that there can be no Manfred von Richtofen or Erich Hartmann with hundreds of kills in a world in which most air forces count their aircraft inventories in the dozens, as opposed to the hundreds and thousands of yesteryear; a world where high-end sensors, datalink and BVR missiles are the norm is no place for the daring dogfights of a Pierre Clostermann or Georges Guynemer.
So how could one justify having a cast of "star" pilots when such a pilot cannot possibly exist? And how could there be flashy colorful paint schemes in the era of Air Superiority Grey?
Easy. Have it be a lie. The government wants their René Fonck, their Francesco Barraca, their Lydia Litvyak to plaster on TV and social media; so it'll make their own aces. The 27th Joint Tactical Fighter Squadron "Arrowheads" would have bright tail art painted on their F-5s and JAS-39s, and receive credit for major allied victories - despite, in fact, being just another cog in the machine. A manufactured symbol of hope to get recorded on people's phones as they flew overhead.
Behold, ancient art of questionable quality from when the author had first decided to pick up drawing as a hobby.
Ironically, I did not expect to ever see anything close to that actually happen; nor could I have foreseen that bright, flashy paint schemes would make a genuine comeback as they did in Ukraine, with aircraft painted in bright blue and yellow colors for 100% practical visual identification purposes. I loved bittersweet stories such as Area 88 which dealt with the internal conflicts and grief of their characters; my plan was to follow these characters along as they struggled with their undue fame while so many others sacrificed in anonymity; while others took even more risks for their sake, since losing one of the bright propaganda planes would've been a PR disaster.
Of course, to actually write such a thing was beyond my dedication and skill at the time, and the few pages I ever actually wrote down were complete garbage. This loose concept of a story ended up being mostly fuel for what turned out to be my preferred creative outlet, drawing, until I moved on to other themes shortly after enrolling in college.
I do not mention this to claim authorship over this concept, forecasting skills, or even originality; I'm sure many others had similar ideas while watching the relentless advance of social media and, after all, I never did write the bloody thing. No, I mention this solely so the reader may imagine the size of the smile on this author's face when Bandai Namco announced Ace Combat 8 on December 2025.
From the very first announcement trailer, the main element of the story is clearly laid out in front of us: You, the player-ace, are a lie, "a mass illusion fabricated by the rumor mill of social media". Your title, the Wings of Theve, is inherited from a fellow pilot who had been previously chosen for this role and, after his passing, it's up to you to keep that legend alive.
YES! I exclaimed at the screen. In a way, I felt vindicated; through a totally different path, taking inspiration from events which had since taken place in the real world, a team of professional storytellers had arrived at the same general idea. Most importantly though, it is such a cool concept! I was extraordinarily happy to see a story like this actually being written - in one of my favorite game franchises no less - and it couldn't have arrived at a more appropriate time.
Throughout the multiple releases of the Ace Combat franchise, its creators at Project Aces have shown time and time again to be incredibly in tune with the Zeitgeist - the events and themes of the world which shape our collective experience. It is perhaps no coincidence that "Theve" rhymes with "Kyiv".
And what could be a better description of our Zeitgeist than "the rumor mill of social media"? Algorithms. Misinformation. AI slop. It's increasingly hard to tell if something's true or not: misinformation and deliberate disinformation travel quicker and further than ever; Content which is provocative or sensational gets put on the spotlight by engagement-maximizing logic; and misleading content is downright effortless to create.
In a world where scrolling feeds keep people glued to their phones, every person - you and me included - finds themselves thrown into the middle of a battlefield. Public perception is a valuable asset (which means your perception is likewise an asset), information is the weapon used to fight for its control, and if you're so overloaded by useless or misleading information that you cannot tell lies from the truth, the lies win.
Some of the game's cutscenes are shown to use a vertical framing format, as seen on smartphone videos - perhaps too much in tune with our world.
Ace Combat 8 seems poised to tackle this very 2020's theme in its story, along with such others as resource disputes brought about by desertification; this is one of the stated reasons for the Republic of Sotoa, the game's antagonist, having initiated the war.
Sotoa itself is such an interesting concept; in keeping with Strangereal's traditions, it is not an equivalent to any particular real-world country, rather being a mix of different cultures and themes. What makes it special is that these influences, for once, are not overwhelmingly western.
Most countries in Strangereal overwhelmingly feature European and American influence, sometimes with a bit of Japan sprinkled in (looking at you, Osean Air Self-Defense Force). This is not a bad thing; after all, most of the game's influences and a huge portion of its audience are indeed western. Ace Combat X tried something different with a decidedly South American inspiration (depending on your view that might also count as western), while AC5 had Yuktobania which is basically the Soviet Union, though the extent to which they were different from Osea doesn't go much further than an accent. Bottom line is, almost every conflict in Ace Combat happens between countries which are culturally very similar.
The Republic of Sotoa, on the other hand, is a completely radical deviation from Ace Combat's comfort zone. It's got some Mongolian steppe, Genghis Khan vibes going on with its nomadic, horseback warrior traditions; and it also seems to have some Slavic and Arab influences thrown in for good measure. It is such a different concept, and no doubt there will be major a major cultural clash with the Usean continent's FCU, a decidedly western-culture nation with a history linked to Ace Combat 04's ISAF.
It will be interesting to see how this contrast is tackled in the story; though certain scenes from the live-action miniseries have stirred controversy, let us remember that Ace Combat has had its fair share of downright evil characters, but also a history of ultimately portraying antagonist nations in a very human, empathetic fashion. Take the overused and over-meme'd nation of Belka, for instance. Even though Belka's government and "grey men" elite are objectively the bad guys (perhaps to a cartoonish extent), and though it spawned such irredeemable characters as Allen C. Hamilton, one cannot help but feel empathy and even appreciation towards most Belkan characters shown in Zero's interview cutscenes.
Two Belkans: A professional backstabber, and a guy who just wants to retire and go raise some cows or something.
And man, the music! Keiki Kobayashi is back again, and the man is delivering. Everflow is a banger in my book, and in the latest story trailer there's the implication that the Sotoan aces might ride into battle chanting the vocal intro to their own theme song? Hello? Seems like Bandai Namco just gave free creative reign to the sound team, and am I excited to see what they've come up with!
Speaking of Everflow's release and the trailers, Ace Combat 8's marketing campaign has been showing the industry how it's done. Unlike 7, which tried to build up hype years in advance and led to many players being frustrated, AC 8 got dropped basically out of nowhere with less than a year to the launch date, and since then we've been getting very consistent communication which has been really picking up the pace on the final leg to release. From the trailers and music to the clear communication regarding multiplayer and the little short-form videos with nugget explaining little tidbits about the story, it's been a very well-handled campaign, giving players enough content to be excited without being overwhelming. It is also good to see they've apparently truly tried to hear what players wanted: For years the Ace Combat fandom has been yearning for the multiplayer experience provided by Infinity, and this seems to be exactly what AC 8 is trying to do.
Bandai Namco has managed to make me genuinely excited for a game for the first time in a good while, and this is a feeling which seems to be largely shared by our team at Skyward. And going back full circle, this shows how in tune Project Aces is with the main theme of its story: If they want to talk about social media and how it influences people, they've surely shown to be good at handling that subject matter!
So, as the release date approaches, what can we expect of Ace Combat 8? Well, here's my take: where AC 7 was a return to form for Ace Combat on gameplay, AC 8 is poised to be a return to form on story.
What do I mean by this? Bandai Namco has clearly shown us they're going to have different and quirky things such as new interactive mechanics for the cutscenes, and potentially a Johnny Silverhand-esque voice in your head in the form of Jan "Rex" Cope, taking the whole Ghost of Kyiv inspiration perhaps too literally. This is fine; it's okay to experiment with different concepts on how you tell a story. What I mean here is the story being told itself.
Ace Combat has always had a human, emotional aspect to it: from Ace Combat 04 telling you the story from the perspective of a little boy caught in the tragedy of war who is essentially adopted by your "rival" enemy ace, to Ace Combat Zero having you watch Pixy navigate through his emotions and beliefs over the course of the war.
And in order to tell such a human story, you need memorable characters. This is what so many Ace Combat clones got wrong - HAWX has the cool planes and arcade gameplay, but its characters are utterly bland and supremely forgettable. In much the same way Gundam is a show about giant robots which is actually about the pilots of said robots, from a story perspective Ace Combat is a game about aces. The cool jets are simply the tools through which the player interacts with these characters.
What HAWX thought people wanted, versus what the people actually yearn for.
Say what you will about the quirky pink-haired girl - In the little bits we've seen of AC 8's characters, they've already shown more personality than AC 7's roster did for that whole game. I never really felt any attachment to any of 7's characters; the huge roster felt quite uninspired, and the game never made me care for my squadmates like Zero did with Pixy, or even like AC 04 did with the soldiers at the beach in Operation Bunker Shot. In contrast, AC 8 isn't even out yet and I already want to know more about Baxter, Tasha and Coster.
Ace Combat 8's cast show a lot of personality even through the trailers, suggesting the game is heavily story-focused; familiar territory for fans of older games in the series.
Let there be no mistake: Ace Combat 7 saved the franchise, no doubt about it. It also had amazing gameplay and introduced many new fans to the series, having become the highest-selling game in the franchise by far. But the story felt like a rush job; and based on what we know about what was going on behind the scenes at the time, with the pressure and limited resources the development team had to deal with, it is easy to understand why. Project Aces made do with what they had and, by all accounts, they did an extraordinary job. But now that 7's success has firmly solidified the franchise's position within Bandai Namco, AC 8 has the opportunity to become something much bigger.
Fiction is not entirely divorced from reality; the former always mirrors the latter, carrying the author's perception of their own reality into writing.
Likewise, the audience interprets fiction through a lens of their own perception. But no lens is perfectly transparent, and as the audience relates to the story, that part which is absorbed and reflected by this lens also affects how they perceive their own reality.
Stories can help us relate to each other, can help us process our own experiences. And in this regard, we need a story that portrays this disorienting whirlwind of social media, this battle for our attention and opinion, this deliberately manufactured confusion, this tension of renewed great power competition and the human tragedy it spawns.
In this writer's humble opinion, if Ace Combat 8's story is done right, if it rises up to the challenge of capturing the gravity of our historical moment, it has the potential to rank as one of the most memorable Ace Combat games ever.
The "Ghosts of Kyiv" of the PS ZSU, presumed hopelessly fated to destruction in 2022, fight on still in 2026 against all odds. Will the "Wings of Theve" of the FCU echo their struggle? How will that story unfold? We're all itching to know, but we're not going to give you a game review just now. Here at Skyward we're all avoiding spoilers like the plague so we can actually enjoy the storytelling once the game comes out.
It could be that within a few days, when Ace Combat 8 releases, I am proven wrong. It could be that the story ends up having some cheap plot twist that just sucks the whole gravitas out of it; it could be that Sotoa is portrayed as a cartoonishly evil antagonist; it could be that it turns out it was Belka's fault all over again. Until then, let us enjoy the hype and savor this feeling of having a truly special game on the horizon.
About the Writer
An incurable aviation fanatic since childhood, fascinated by the design and history of practically anything that flies. A long-time fan of flight games, he holds a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering and pursues his hobbies of drawing, writing and flight simulation on his spare time. See Staff Profile.
