Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve has joined the ranks of September-October releases that have done very well commercially. The sequel, which officially launched on 2nd October following three days of early access, has been very popular on Steam.

According to SteamDB, Ace Combat 8 peaked at a respectable 52,694 concurrent players. The figure was achieved on Saturday, one day after Friday's official launch. Although we have no visibility on PlayStation and Xbox player numbers, it's hard to imagine them being anything but equal, at the very least.

Ace Combat has historically been console-first. Most games in the series were never released on PC, so it's good to see it thriving on Steam. The renaissance started with 2019's Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, which released on PC days after PS4 and Xbox One and peaked at 13,758 concurrent players on Steam. Though that number seems modest today, it was Ace Combat's biggest debut on PC at that point. This is what makes Ace Combat 8's jump in player numbers all the more commendable.

Players appear to be happy, too, with the current Steam user rating sitting at Very Positive with over 5,755 reviews. This follows a brief controversy that erupted shortly after the game's early access launch where players were disappointed to find Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, a pre-order bonus, is not a standalone app as they were lead to believe and has to instead be launched through Ace Combat 8, creating a lot of unnecessary problems.

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