Somewhere between a fighter jet's canopy and the thick white banks that drift across it, a development team has spent years treating weather as a working part of the machine. At Bandai Namco, the Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve developers have built a new cloud engine called Cloudly, and in doing so they have turned something that was once only scenery into a tool for judging height and finding enemies. Their work arrives on October 2, and it rests on a quieter lesson: that a team which keeps its memory together can afford to chase small things very far.
Ace Combat 8's Developers Chase Realistic Clouds, Using Them for Cover, Altitude Cues and Gameplay
The sky is an empty box, and clouds are how you build maps in it
Mark
Why spend so much effort on clouds in a flight game?
Mimi
Because Kono says the sky is an empty box. With no terrain, clouds are what let the team build maps up there, and they give players cover.
Luke
Worth noting that's the developers' own framing. The reporter did fly the first and fourth missions, but it was a guided session.
Mark
And the gameplay side, not just looks?
Mimi
Shimomoto says clouds help players judge altitude. Shadows on clouds can show whether an enemy is above or below, and a flicker might be sun on an enemy canopy.
Luke
Those are described as intended uses. The piece doesn't test how well they work in actual play.
Mark
What is Cloudly exactly?
Mimi
A proprietary middleware layered over the game engine. It replaces Truesky, which the team modified for Ace Combat 7.
Luke
The 100x speedup is Shimomoto's figure, about rendering time for a 100 square kilometer arena. No independent benchmark is given.
Mark
Why does Bandai Namco Aces matter here?
Mimi
Formed in 2022, it keeps developers on the series instead of scattering after each game, so know-how stays in one place.
Luke
Kono says that helped, but the article doesn't show how much it drove Cloudly specifically.
The Pulse
- A jet-combat sky is an empty box, and the team must fill it with clouds that are both beautiful and useful.
- The old cloud tool, Truesky, could not give the team enough levers, so they abandoned it for the proprietary Cloudly middleware.
- Each frame gets just 16 milliseconds at 60fps, and a 100-square-kilometer arena full of clouds once overwhelmed the rendering budget.
- An engineer cut rendering time to a hundredth of the original, and the clouds now help players read altitude and spot enemies through shadows and glints.
- The game launches October 2, when players will finally test whether clouds have become a real piece of combat strategy.
Somewhere between a fighter jet's canopy and the thick white banks that drift across it, a development team has spent years treating weather as a working part of the machine. At Bandai Namco, the Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve developers have built a new cloud engine called Cloudly, and in doing so they have turned something that was once only scenery into a tool for judging height and finding enemies. Their work arrives on October 2, and it rests on a quieter lesson: that a team which keeps its memory together can afford to chase small things very far.
When Polygon's reporter sat down with the team behind Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, the interview stalled on a single word: cumulonimbus. The Bandai Namco interpreter had to look it up, and brand director Kazutoki Kono reached for a hand-drawn diagram so the question would land properly. That devotion to detail is familiar to anyone who has followed the long-running flight series, and nowhere is it more visible than in the clouds.
Kono explained that the game takes place in an empty sky with no level design. Clouds let the team build maps within that emptiness. They offer cover for hide and seek, and because they have no collision, a player can fly straight through them, moisture streaking across the canopy.
Two changes at the start of production made this possible. The first was Bandai Namco Aces, formed in 2022 as a central team for the franchise. Before it existed, each game's developers scattered after shipping and took their know-how with them. Aces is meant to keep that experience in one place and pass it on to newcomers. The second was Cloudly, a proprietary middleware layered over the game engine, which replaced the Truesky tool used in 2019's Ace Combat 7. Shimomoto explained that the team needed more levers and more room for customization to reach the visual level they wanted.
The team argues the clouds are more than decoration. Well-made clouds help players judge altitude, and shadows falling on them reveal whether an enemy is above or below. A faint flicker inside a cloud might be sunlight on an enemy canopy. The work came from a pairing on the Aces team: one researcher who worked from papers, and one engineer who turned findings into code.
The hardest problem was not any particular cloud type but processing load. At a fixed 60 frames per second, each frame has about 16 milliseconds for every calculation. Early arenas of 100 square kilometers overwhelmed the budget, and the engineer eventually cut rendering time to one-hundredth of the original. Sound received the same obsession: the game is mixed in 7.1.4 channels, and sound designers recorded gunpowder blasts at many distances with professionals before feeding those samples into the system. Wings of Theve arrives October 2, and players will soon be able to judge the clouds for themselves.
When Polygon's reporter sat down with the team behind Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, one word brought the interview to a halt. The word was "cumulonimbus." The Bandai Namco interpreter had to look it up on his phone, and over his shoulder the reporter could see him showing brand director Kazutoki Kono a hand-drawn diagram of cloud formations so the question would come across properly.
That kind of specificity runs through the long-running flight series, which treats small details scientifically. Wings of Theve is due Oct. 2, and the clouds are where the team's attention to detail shows most. Ahead of launch, Kono and producer Manabu Shimomoto walked the reporter through the game's first and fourth missions. The reporter praised the precise handling of the jets, the sound design, and a story about a country's fake propaganda hero who has to become a real ace. What stood out most was flying through puffy cloud banks with moisture streaking across the canopy.
Kono explained why clouds matter so much. The game takes place in the sky, he said, and the sky is an empty box with no level design. Clouds let the team build "maps" within it. They offer cover for hide and seek, and because they have no collision, a player can fly straight through them.
Two developments at the start of production made the new cloud technology possible. The first was the creation of Bandai Namco Aces in 2022, a central command for the franchise staffed by developers committed to the series. Before that, the team behind each Ace Combat game scattered to other projects once it shipped, and the know-how went with them. Kono said Aces is meant to be a repository of experience, with a longer-term plan for passing it to new members. When the reporter said he had assembled his own team of wingmen, Kono joked, using the game's crew command controls, that he presses the D-Pad but no one listens.
The second development was Cloudly, a proprietary middleware engine layered on top of the main game engine. It replaces Truesky, the tool the team modified for 2019's Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. Shimomoto said they considered using Truesky again, but to reach the visual level they wanted, they needed more levers to pull and more room for customization.
The reporter calls the results extraordinary. In the first mission, he flew toward a huge cloud formation with his crew. The DualSense rumbled as he eased into it, simulating air resistance, and condensation thickened on the canopy the deeper he went.
The team argues this is more than cosmetic. Shimomoto said well-made clouds help players judge their altitude, and that Cloudly opened up gameplay details. Shadows now fall on clouds, so a player who reads them can tell whether an enemy is above or below. A small flicker inside a cloud could be sunlight glinting off an enemy canopy. Kono credited the clouds to a collaboration between two people on the Aces team: one who worked from research papers, and an engineer who turned those findings into working code.
Asked whether any cloud type was especially hard to recreate, Kono ended up looking at cartoon diagrams of cirrus and stratus formations. No single type had tripped the team up. Shimomoto's answer concerned processing load. The game is fixed at 60 frames per second, so each frame has about 16 milliseconds for all calculations. Early on, the team wanted arenas covering 100 square kilometers, and with all the clouds placed, rendering was nowhere near that budget. The engineer eventually cut rendering time to one-hundredth of the original.
Shimomoto was just as detailed about audio. The game's sound is mixed in 7.1.4 channels, the same setup as a movie theater. He said the sound designers went to different stages, worked with professionals to record gunpowder blasts at various distances, and fed those samples into the 7.1.4 system. He called them obsessed. Wings of Theve arrives Oct. 2, when players can test the clouds themselves.
Notable Quotes
The sky is an empty box with no level design, so clouds are needed to create maps within it.— Kazutoki Kono, Ace Combat brand director
Shadows on clouds can reveal whether an enemy is above or below you, and a flicker may be sun on an enemy canopy.— Manabu Shimomoto, producer
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