As publisher Bandai Namco and developer Project Aces get ready for the October 2nd release date for Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, through a video on PlayStation Access, the companies have confirmed that the previous game, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, has sold 7.5 million copies since launch.
More detailed charts of Ace Combat 7’s sales have been discovered by social media fan account Ace Combat Fan, giving us a closer look at how well the game has done in the seven years since its release. Having originally come out on PC, PS4, and Xbox One back in 2019, the title took a little over a year to hit the 2 million sales mark, and went on to sell 2.5 million units by the start of 2021. Since then, sales have seemingly been progressing at a steady state.
The 2024 release of the Nintendo Switch port may also have played a large role in selling more copies of Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. The title had sold 5.5 million at the time. By the start of 2025, however, it had sold 6 million copies. The 7 million barrier had been reached at the start of this year, and trends indicate that it might even go on to hit 8 million by the time 2026 ends.
Taking a wider look at the franchise as a whole, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is the best-selling game so far, accounting for 34.9 percent of the 21.5 million total franchise sales. The original Ace Combat trilogy on PlayStation sold 4.48 million copies, while the PS2-era trilogy sold 5.232 million.
Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve was officially unveiled back in December 2025 during The Game Awards. The trailer revealed that the player will take on the role of a pilot on the Endurance – a ship full of refugees from the attack on the Federation of Central Usea. As the eponymous Wings of Theve, the player will partake in epic aerial dogfights to take back the nation from the Republic of Sotoa.
Its release date was announced earlier this month with a brand-new trailer that gave us a deeper look at the story. Among other things, it introduced implications that there might be an imposter pretending to be the Wings of Theve involved in the story, with all of the geopolitical and interpersonal drama that such an event would likely lead to.
More recently, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve got a new trailer giving us a look at how it is changing up the gameplay, and how players will get to take on superweapons. These superweapons – incredibly massive aircraft with multiple parts to take down – tend to be boss fights in the Ace Combat franchise. Among the changes introduced in the upcoming title is the fact that the superweapons can also take damage from attacks made to parts that aren’t the typical target boxes. Destroyed enemy aircrafts will also damage nearby targets, giving players more ways to deal with larger squadrons.
Pre-ordering Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve will reward players with a copy of Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, as well as the F-14A to use in-game.
