Overview
- On Tuesday the Steam store page was updated to describe Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War as a DLC executable that requires Ace Combat 8 to be installed rather than a separate app.
- Because Zero is nested under Ace Combat 8 on Steam, players must download and install the full ~135–150GB modern game to run the roughly 3–4GB 2006 re-release.
- Players report practical losses from the packaging choice, including no separate Steam achievements, no separate cloud saves, harder access on the Steam Deck, and the need to find and run a nested .exe to launch Zero.
- A large tranche of early Steam reviews cite this packaging as a bait-and-switch and also call out PC performance problems such as memory leaks, frequent crashes, and third-party flight-stick incompatibility.
- Eurogamer, Kotaku and PC Gamer have reported the issue and sought comment from Bandai Namco but the publisher has not issued a public fix or official explanation, and the situation is affecting Ace Combat 8’s user rating ahead of the October launch.