I had never stumped a translator in an interview until I sat down to chat with the team behind Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve<\/em>. When the word \u201ccumulonimbus\u201d came up in a question, an interpreter from Bandai Namco had to, understandably, stop to pull up a Google search on his phone. Over his shoulder, I could see him showing Ace Combat brand director Kazutoki Kono a hand-drawn diagram of cloud formations to properly communicate my question.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s the kind of hyper-specific conversation you\u2019re bound to get into when talking about Ace Combat. The long-running flight simulation series is so meticulous that every little detail is approached scientifically. Wings of Theve<\/em> is set to continue that tradition come Oct. 2, and take it to new heights. If you want proof of that, just look to the clouds. No, really.<\/p>\n Ahead of Wings of Theve<\/em>\u2019s launch, Kono and producer Manabu Shimomoto gave me some flying lessons, walking me through the game\u2019s first and fourth missions. There was a lot to rave about from that session: The jets fly with precision, the sound design is top-notch, and the story, about a country\u2019s fake propaganda hero having to become an actual<\/em> ace, is an unexpected riot. But it\u2019s the team\u2019s commitment to realism that caught my attention as I soared through puffy cloud formations, moisture streaking across my canopy.<\/p>\n You might not think much about what goes into making clouds in a video game, but it\u2019s of the utmost importance for the Ace Combat team. A game like this could be brutally <\/em>boring without them.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a game that takes place in the sky,\u201d Kono told Polygon. \u201cWhen you think about it, the sky is an empty box. It\u2019s this giant space that doesn\u2019t have any level design, so to speak. So in order to create \u2018maps\u2019 within the sky, we need clouds. And clouds are actually very convenient for our purposes because they offer cover. You can use them for hide and seek, but they don\u2019t have collision.\u201d<\/p>\n Two things happened at the start of development that were instrumental to the team cracking cloud tech. The first was the creation of Bandai Namco Aces in 2022. The team was established as a \u201ccentral command\u201d for the Ace Combat franchise, with developers fully committed to the series. That was a big change, from Kono\u2019s perspective. Previously, the team behind an Ace Combat game would scatter to work on other projects once work on the game was complete.<\/p>\n \u201cThat doesn\u2019t leave a lot of the know-how in one place,\u201d Kono said. \u201cAces is intended to be a repository of that, where all the experience can be retained, and there\u2019s a much more long-term growth strategy for how we pass that information on to new team members.\u201d (When I said that it sounded like Kono had put together his own team of wingmen, he cracked a joke using Wings of Theve<\/em>\u2019s crew command controls: \u201cI press the D-Pad, but no one listens to what I have to say!\u201d)<\/p>\n Establishing a dedicated team would help Bandai Namco focus on developing new tech for the series. And one of the fruits of that decision was Cloudly, a proprietary middleware engine that\u2019s layered on top of the proper game engine. That\u2019s the magical tech that allows the team to render realistic-looking clouds. That was a significant change from the series\u2019 last installment, 2019\u2019s Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Ace Combat 7<\/em>, we used a tool called Truesky,\u201d Shimomoto told Polygon. \u201cWe took it and added a lot of modifications to it, which is how we were able to render the clouds. We thought about using Truesky again, but in order to push the visual expression to the level that we wanted to, we needed more levers to pull and customization.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t The clouds do look extraordinary in Wings of Theve<\/em>, for the record. They\u2019re astonishingly realistic, and they practically beg you to fly into them just to see what happens. In the campaign\u2019s first mission, I cruised towards an enormous cloud formation with my crew. The DualSense rumbled as I dipped into the cloud carefully, giving me the sensory feedback of air resistance. The deeper I dove in, the more condensation built up on my canopy. It was sublime.<\/p>\n There are a lot more ways to play the game because of the clouds.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n Do you really <\/em>need so much dedicated tech just to make some cool clouds, though? The team believes so, because it\u2019s not just a matter of visual fidelity. Shimomoto noted that getting clouds just right is crucial, because it helps players determine their altitude. Cloudly opened the door for a lot of nuanced details that ultimately expanded the gameplay. After all, clouds are one of the few things your fighter jet truly interacts with in an Ace Combat game.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can see shadows cast on clouds now,\u201d Shimomoto said. \u201cIf you\u2019re situationally aware enough, you can determine if the enemy is either above or below you if you can recognize the position of the shadows. Likewise, among the clouds, if you see a little flicker, that could be the sun reflecting off of the canopy of an enemy, which is also very useful information. There are a lot more ways to play the game because of the clouds.\u201d<\/p>\n As you can imagine, there\u2019s a lot of science powering an engine like this. Kono notes that the clouds came from a \u201ccollaborative effort between two geniuses\u201d on the Aces team: one person who approached it from an academic angle, with their nose buried in research papers, and an engineer who took all of those findings and figured out how to execute them in a game.<\/p>\n A weekly cheat sheet to what you\u2019ll eventually love to play. No buying, no \t\t\tSign up free![\"A](\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ace-combat-8-wings-of-theve-clouds-from-cockpit.png?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2\")
\n <\/picture>Image: Bandai Namco Aces\/Bandai Namco Entertainment<\/small><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ace-combat-8-wings-of-theve-jet-in-clouds.png?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2\")
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