Ace Combat 8 Update 1.01.002 Patch Notes: Fixes and Async Compute

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve gets Update Data Ver. 1.01.002 on Steam on October 23, Bandai Namco’s Ace Combat team said in its release notice. The post doesn’t give a time of day, so expect it sometime that day. Most of the patch is about missions that wouldn’t progress, plus a few crashes.

In the campaign, the team fixed ten missions where a mission could stall or fail. On Mission 6 a mission could fail if a wingman fired an MPBM at a nearby ground target while the transport was taking off. Mission 10 could stop progressing after you landed on the aircraft carrier. Mission 11 could crash when a chain explosion involving Podarge occurred. Missions 13, 14, 16, 18, 25, 28 and 30 get their own fixes, including a stuck cinematic when the “L” key was bound to camera controls (Mission 13) and a “HULL” target that couldn’t be destroyed (Mission 30).

Two balance tweaks are in there as well. Mission 15’s Ladon gets a difficulty adjustment on Elite and above, and Mission 28 changes the maximum number of flares for Shadow 22 and your wingmen. The notice doesn’t say in which direction. Two crashes are also fixed across all missions: one when sorting by an aircraft role you own no planes for in Select Aircraft, and one when entering the Aircraft Tree for the first time with the Left direction held while owning certain DLC aircraft.

On the multiplayer side, Ace Combat Online fixes an account-creation screen that could get stuck, a controller disconnect during the mission start, and a landing that sometimes didn’t register in Military Training. The effect duration of three SP Weapons (ECM, ESM and IEWS) is reduced. The team also says it is prioritizing UI and menu control improvements for Ace Combat Online, to be delivered gradually in later updates.

PC players get two changes outside the campaign. There’s a new Async Compute option in the System menu for GPUs that support it, and it’s grayed out on GPUs that don’t. In-game ACE COINS purchases also work again when the Steam Overlay is turned off.

Nothing here changes how the game plays in a big way, but the Async Compute toggle is the item PC players will care about, since it gives you a switch to try if your GPU supports it. For example, if a mission froze on you after the Mission 10 carrier landing, this is the patch the team points to for that problem. Bandai Namco hasn’t said when the Ace Combat Online menu changes arrive, so those complaints will outlast this update. The team also made another Steam change this week, and Ace Combat Zero now runs standalone for pre-order owners.

Edited by Kerwin Stewart, Editor-in-Chief · How we report