Publisher Bandai Namco has quietly converted the remaster on Steam into a DLC. Buyers must now download 135 GB to play the PS2 hit.
Owners of the Deluxe Edition of Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve can now play the game in Early Access. However, one detail is casting a huge shadow over the launch: Publisher Bandai Namco is causing a great deal of discontent with its handling of a specific pre-order bonus.
Anyone who pre-orders any version of Ace Combat 8 will receive a copy of Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War. Longtime fans were especially looking forward to this re-release, as the 2006 classic had previously been exclusive to the PlayStation 2.
Classic Game on Steam Suddenly Available Only as DLC
PC gamers were fully expecting their copy of The Belkan War to be a standalone product. After all, that’s exactly how it works on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. On Steam, however, plans changed at the last minute: The game was instead repurposed as DLC for Ace Combat 8. If this remains the case, it will cause quite a few problems. For example, you’ll have to download a massive modern game just to launch a comparatively tiny classic. This also makes it impossible to run the game separately on less powerful hardware like the Steam Deck.
The product page on Steam definitely stated something different before. At some point, the description text was updated. “Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War is a standalone application separate from the main game, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve” suddenly became: “Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War (Steam version) is available as a DLC application that launches separately from the main game. Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve must be installed to use DLCs.”
It’s hard to tell exactly when the store page was updated. However, a Reddit post from earlier this month shows just how confused the community was about accessing The Belkan War even before launch.
Confusion Turns to Frustration
One user had pre-ordered Ace Combat 8 on Steam and simply couldn’t find The Belkan War in his library. The screenshot he attached of the store page still clearly showed the old wording—so confusion was inevitable.
This sneaky change has since appeared in many negative Steam reviews for Ace Combat 8. Tempers are also running high in the Ace Combat subreddit—the issue is currently overshadowing any discussions about the game itself.
A 135-GB download requirement for a 4-gigabyte game
The fact that The Belkan War is now a downloadable content pack instead of a standalone game comes with significant drawbacks. First and foremost, you have to download and install the entire main game of AC8, which is about 135 GB. And all that just to play a port of a game from 2006 that weighs in at less than 4 GB.
As one Reddit user notes, this decision also prevents players from easily playing The Belkan War on the Steam Deck. “I didn’t hold out any hope that AC8 would run on my Steam Deck,” the user writes. “I pre-ordered it on Steam specifically to play Zero on the Deck. After all, we’d been promised a standalone app.”
Ace Combat 8 places an enormous strain on the Steam Deck’s hardware. The remaster of a 20-year-old game, on the other hand, would have handled the handheld with ease. Because the title is now embedded as DLC within the main game, it also lacks its own achievements and cloud save support. Playtime, screenshots, and all profile statistics are therefore also recorded entirely under the main game.
A Full-Fledged Experience on Console, a Detour on PC
Since *The Belkan War* has its own folder within the *Ace Combat 8* directory, the application can technically be launched separately via the .exe file—but you still have to install the massive main game. This is all the more frustrating because console players don’t have these issues at all: On PS5 and Xbox, the title is released as a full-fledged standalone app with all the benefits.
Currently, Ace Combat 8 has over 1,350 reviews on Steam with a “Mixed” rating. It remains to be seen whether the situation will calm down by the official release on October 2.
