ACE COMBAT 8 Aircraft List: Every Confirmed Plane at Launch

The launch hangar: 30+ airframes, four classes

Project ACES has committed to more than 30 aircraft at launch, organized into four classes. Players pick both aircraft and loadout before each sortie, and the class system is the first filter in that choice: classes group airframes by intended role, the way the series has always split fighters, attackers and multirole types.

The complete named roster has not been published. What follows is every airframe that official material — store screenshots, the Steam listing and announcements — already shows, and where it appears.

Confirmed player aircraft

Four of those — the Typhoon, Su-57, F-35 and a yellow F-16 — appear together in one official screenshot in striking paint schemes, confirming a special-livery system alongside the Deluxe Edition’s customizable cosmetic set.

Confirmed hostile and neutral types

Screenshots put faces on the opposition too:

• SU-25SM Frogfoot — ground-attack aircraft over the snow-valley map, worth +340 score each.
• MQ-19 — a hostile drone type engaged above the clouds, +100 score.
• Lux Lunae’s black interceptors — the 55th Unit’s twin-tailed, black-and-gold interceptors shown in the squadron introduction card (see the aces and wingmen guide).

What the four classes mean in practice

The four-class split has not been mapped to individual aircraft yet, but the series’ structure — fighter, attacker, multirole, and in recent entries a heavy or specialized fourth group — gives the shape of it. The confirmed roster already shows the classic trade-offs: the F-14D carries long-range air-to-air weapons, the F/A-18 family balances both domains, and the F-2A pairs ground weapons with a nimble frame.

How classes map to handling and weapon availability gets tested during launch week. The best starting aircraft guide turns the confirmed lineup into concrete first-pick advice, and the parts and loadouts guide shows how weapons and parts layer on top of the airframe choice.

Special weapons per airframe

One clear change: every airframe carries two special weapon slots. Screenshots show the same menu rows — SELECT SP WEAPON 1 and SELECT SP WEAPON 2 — regardless of aircraft, with loadouts differing by pilot choice rather than hard class restrictions. Whether each airframe restricts which special weapons it can mount is not confirmed; the special weapons guide tracks the confirmed list.

What is missing from this list

Roughly two-thirds of the launch roster is unnamed in official material. Names, class assignments, statistics and any post-launch additions will be added here with their verification date after October 1-2, 2026 — nothing on this page is extrapolated from rumors. If you want the campaign context for where these aircraft fight, the campaign overview sets the scene of the Sotoa-Usea War.