ACE COMBAT 8 Missions 1-10 Walkthrough: Official Tips Summarized

This page summarizes the official ACE COMBAT 8 web guide that Bandai Namco publishes on the game’s Japanese website, in our own words. The guide covers the first ten campaign missions; we add the completion rates from Steam’s achievement statistics so you can see how far other players have got. Light spoilers: mission names, objectives and the enemies you meet, but no story details beyond that.

How does a campaign mission work?

Every mission follows the same loop: a briefing, then the hangar, where you pick your aircraft, special weapons, parts and your wingmen’s aircraft, then the sortie, and finally a debriefing. Some missions add a takeoff, a carrier landing or an aerial refueling before or after the fighting, and objectives often change halfway through, so the goal on the briefing screen isn’t always the last one.

Three things from the guide’s opening pages are worth knowing before you start:

• Checkpoints. Some missions save your progress at set moments, and after a failure you restart from there instead of from the beginning.
• Objectives vary. Destroy every target, protect an ally or reach a score, sometimes against a time limit.
• MRP and the Aircraft Tree. From Mission 4 on, you can spend Military Result Points (MRP) in the Aircraft Tree on new aircraft, special weapons and upgrade parts before each sortie. Optional landings and refuelings pay a little extra MRP if you complete them.

What does the official guide recommend for each mission?

Mission	Recommended aircraft	Special weapon	Parts	Steam players who finished it
01 Jokers Wild	Starting F/A-18C	4AAM	-	92.9%
02 Nomad	F/A-18C	4AAM	-	89.3%
03 Purple Magic Takes Flight	-	4AAM	-	85.2%
04 The Fall of the Numbered Fleets	Mirage 2000-5	LASM	MSL.RELOAD+	82.5%
05 Retaking of Theve	Mirage 2000-5	UGB	MSL.RELOAD+, STABILITY+	80.1%
06 Attack on the Drinwich Airfield	EA-6B	ECM/ESM	ACCEL+, MAX SPEED+	78.0%
07 A Lifeline in the Desert	Mirage 2000-5	UGB	ACCEL+, MAX SPEED+	76.5%
08 Retaking of Theve II	Mirage 2000-5	UGB and 4AAM	MSL.RELOAD+, MSL.PAYLOAD+, MAX SPEED+	74.8%
09 The Land Battleship Blockade	A-10C	UGB and RKT	BOMB.POW+, BOMB.AREA+, BOMB.RELOAD+	73.0%
10 Over the Rainband	F-14D	LAAM	LOCATOR.DISP+, MAX SPEED+, MSL.AIR.POW+	71.9%

Completion rates are the share of Steam players with each mission’s achievement on November 1, 2026. Missions 1 and 2 are flown in the F/A-18C you start with, and the guide doesn’t name an aircraft for Mission 3. Mission 8 is the first where it suggests two special weapons at once; carrying two means less ammunition for each.

Missions 1 to 3: learning to fight

Mission 01, Jokers Wild, doubles as the controls tutorial. You can skip the tutorial and the mission still continues, but the guide suggests first-timers take it. The drones that appear in pairs can’t shoot back, so close in fast. The real threat is the pair of escort fighters guarding the recon aircraft at the end: they fire missiles, so shoot them down before going after the recon plane, which has several lock-on points that the 4AAM can hit at once.

Mission 02, Nomad, is an escort mission: if the carrier Endurance is destroyed, the mission fails. Ripple-like signs on the radar show when the carrier is under attack. Enemy waves arrive from the north and then the east, and bombers come last from the east, so save your 4AAMs for them. Wingman commands unlock here. The carrier landing at the end is hard, but it is optional and pays a little MRP.

Mission 03, Purple Magic Takes Flight, asks you to defend White Valley base, its radar sites and a squadron that hasn’t taken off yet, against wave after wave announced by the AWACS over the radio. Bombers arrive split between high and low altitude, so check altitude when you look for the next target, and use the gun on them because they are tough. The last wave is a four-plane squadron called the Shadows, far more agile than anything before. The guide’s advice is to spend special weapons and chaff and flares freely in the first moments, when they are most numerous.

Missions 4 to 6: picking the right tool

Mission 04, The Fall of the Numbered Fleets, is a surprise attack on two fleets at Newfield Island, one in the eastern port and one in the northwestern port, in either order. The guide suggests the eastern fleet first with the long-range anti-ship LASM, and saving special weapons for the heavier northwest, where the enemy ace squadron Shark joins. Shark isn’t a required target, but leaving it alive is dangerous and shooting it down is worth a lot of points; order your wingmen to attack it.

Mission 05, Retaking of Theve, protects landing craft heading for the capital. When they are 900 m from landing, the objective changes: from then on, enemy artillery causes huge explosions, and the radar shows where they will land. Leave the marked area first, then pick a new target. A second wave of enemy aircraft appears close to the landing craft; it helps to thin out the dense ground weapons before it arrives.

Mission 06, Attack on the Drinwich Airfield, is air support for a friendly assault force. The EA-6B’s ECM weakens enemy missiles and its ESM strengthens friendly ones, and both work best once the fight concentrates on the airfield. Four drones appear there at the end; destroying all of them ends the mission, so finish other enemies first if you want a higher score. Update Ver. 1.01.002 fixed a case where this mission could fail if a wingman fired an MPBM at a nearby ground target while the transport was taking off.

Missions 7 to 10: harder rules

Mission 07, A Lifeline in the Desert, is a score attack against a time limit, and you keep earning MRP after you pass the target score. A blue return line on the radar lets you land mid-mission to repair, rearm and swap special weapons; wrecking the airfield adds a second line to the west. The guide’s notes on targets: solar panels fall to the gun alone, ammunition depots score 1,800 each but only take hits from one direction, and the two land-based Aegis ships guarding the oil plant are tough enough to deserve bombs.

Mission 08, Retaking of Theve II, returns to the capital with far more enemies. Ground reinforcements are the main danger to the assault force, but enemy fighters lock on constantly, so the guide says to clear aircraft first and hit ground weapons when nobody is locked on to you. On some difficulties, ammunition runs short: gun down ground targets that aren’t hidden behind buildings, and keep weapons for the Shadows near the end.

Mission 09, The Land Battleship Blockade, pits you against a giant land battleship while you protect unmanned self-destruct vehicles; losing them fails the mission. Stay out of its railgun’s line of fire, which shows on the radar, destroy the quadcopters it launches against the vehicles, and keep hitting its secondary tracks. At the end you blow up the high-rise Heavens Central by destroying targets in three places within a time limit, then fly low alongside the stranded battleship to hit its rocket motors.

Mission 10, Over the Rainband, is a special mission: part of the aiming for the superweapon Spear of Tonitrus comes from an airship’s laser, the airship hides somewhere inside green circles on your radar, and you must destroy it before each countdown ends. Follow the laser by eye to find it. When no laser is active, shoot down the fighters attacking the Endurance instead of searching the clouds. Basically only carrier aircraft can sortie, and the final round brings two airships lasing at once. Update Ver. 1.01.002 fixed a bug where this mission could stop progressing after a carrier landing.

What do these missions teach about the rest of the campaign?

Three habits carry through all ten. Read the radar before you fire: it shows targets, threats, danger zones and how many points each enemy is worth. Match special weapons to the targets, since the guide’s choices change almost every mission. And treat optional enemies as a bonus, not a duty: in escort missions, detours can cost you the mission. For the basics behind these tips, see our beginner guide and controls and difficulty pages, and for patch fixes to individual missions, the updates page. All guides are on the ACE COMBAT 8 hub.