Back when I covered Ace Combat Zero, I was annoyed at how you had to keep Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve installed on Steam to play Ace Combat Zero. While this may not seem like a huge deal to some, it basically meant you had to install a 100+ GB game on PC to play Ace Combat Zero.
This was worse for handhelds where Ace Combat 8 isn't a great experience. Since PS5 and Xbox Series X owners could download Ace Combat Zero separately and play it without 8 installed, I was hoping we'd see the same done for PC. Thankfully, Bandai Namco has now made Ace Combat Zero available to download separately on Steam. It even has its own unlisted Steam page here.
Note that Ace Combat Zero isn't sold separately and it was only available as a pre-order bonus for Ace Combat 8. If you pre-ordered Ace Combat 8, you should now have Ace Combat Zero as a separate library entry on Steam. A trailer for the Ace Combat Zero ported version (the pre-order bonus) can be found below:
The standalone release also supports Steam Achievements as detailed by Bandai Namco below:
The standalone application version supports Steam Achievements.
If you load save data from the previous version that has already met the requirements for certain achievements and then complete any mission, the corresponding achievements will be unlocked automatically.
Ace Combat Zero and Ace Combat 8 are now available on PS5, Xbox Series, and PC Steam (8 and Zero).
