Ace Combat 8 Campaign Medals

ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE has 29 Campaign Medals. You need any 10 of them for Meritorious Service; you do not need the complete set. The most efficient route is to check what your save has already awarded, combine cumulative counters with mission replays, and delay the six full-campaign restrictions until you are ready for dedicated runs. Medals are campaign goals, not Assault Records, trophies, or ACE COMBAT ONLINE rewards.

Two conditions still lack enough available information for an exact target list or numerical trigger: the Mission 25 enemy-force challenge and the Mission 27 chain-reaction challenge. Read their in-game descriptions before attempting them. The checklist below keeps those gaps visible instead of guessing.

Keep this checklist separate from Assault Records and Aces. Use the campaign mission list and difficulty guide to plan the matching replay.

Version scope — October 7, 2026: This page was edited from supplied research. No numbered game build or independent playtest is recorded for this guide. Check the current in-game descriptions and your platform before applying build-sensitive conditions.

Where to Check Your Medal Progress

Open Data Viewer > Campaign Data > Campaign Medals. Record every earned medal before choosing the next sortie. This prevents you from repeating a long condition when a cumulative or mission-specific medal is already close.

Use a simple cleanup loop:

1. Check the medals screen and note your current total.
2. Separate unfinished entries into counters, S ranks, mission challenges, and full-campaign restrictions.
3. Choose a replay that advances more than one goal.
4. Complete the mission; do not leave immediately after performing the apparent condition.
5. Return to Campaign Medals and confirm that the award registered.

That last confirmation is important. A normal mission clear can succeed while a stricter medal condition fails. An escort may survive after taking damage, for example, but the Mission 21 medal requires the escort target to take no damage.

All 29 Ace Combat 8 Medals

The 29 entries divide into eight cumulative combat medals, four complete S-rank sets, eleven mission challenges, and six campaign restrictions. Some available accounts do not expose an official English name for every medal, so descriptive labels are used only to identify the requirement.

Cumulative Combat Medals

These counters are cumulative. Bronze Ace progress continues toward Silver and Gold Ace, and the three Marksman thresholds share the same aircraft gun-kill counter. For Marksman, the machine gun must deliver the kill; merely damaging an aircraft with guns before another weapon finishes it is not enough.

Do not farm the tiers separately. Use guns on manageable aircraft while replaying missions for other medals, and use ship-heavy or surface-heavy missions when those counters remain unfinished. This is routing advice, not a guarantee that one particular mission is the fastest for every aircraft and loadout.

Complete S-Rank Medals

An all-Ace S-rank set satisfies all four difficulty thresholds because the first three explicitly accept a higher difficulty. Ace difficulty must first be unlocked by completing the campaign on Elite. Afterward, Free Mission can be used to repair individual missing S ranks.

This overlap is efficient for players already pursuing Ace of Aces, but it is not a quick shortcut to Meritorious Service. Completing the entire S-rank set on the highest difficulty is a major commitment. Treat the four medals as late cleanup unless that trophy is already your goal.

Confirm the recorded rank on the results screen before counting a mission toward a medal objective.

Mission Challenge Medals

Operation Long Shot is listed by operation name because the available accounts conflict on its mission number. Follow the LCAC evacuation condition shown in your save rather than relying on an unverified number.

For the escort medals, remain near the protected unit and prioritize threats moving toward it. Optional distant targets do not compensate for a damaged escort or a missed LCAC. In Mission 14, a clear after an earlier radar detection may still complete the mission, but it does not satisfy the no-detection condition. In Mission 17, the restriction is specifically about Joker Flight handling the primary targets.

Mission 25 and Mission 27 are poor first-ten choices until you can see their full requirement in game. No available information resolves the exact Mission 25 force list or the numerical chain-reaction trigger for Mission 27.

Full-Campaign Restriction Medals

Forced-aircraft missions are excluded by the wording of the four class conditions. For selectable missions, verify the aircraft class shown by the game instead of inferring it from the aircraft's real-world role or appearance.

Treat all six as complete campaign runs, not as collections you can assemble piecemeal in Free Mission. The community reports specifically warn that Free Mission clears did not award the class-run medals. They also describe difficult combinations, such as pairing an Attacker run with machine guns only. Because those reports are player observations rather than an official system specification, the safest plan is one restriction per campaign and an in-game check after completion.

A Practical Route to the First 10 Medals

There is no universal fastest ten because every save has different counters and completed challenges. Start by keeping anything already earned. Then favor short, observable mission conditions and allow the cumulative medals to rise in the background.

A reasonable pool for an ordinary cleared save is:

1. Bronze Ace, then Silver Ace through normal replay kills.
2. Bronze Marksman by finishing suitable aircraft with machine guns.
3. Ship of Liberty while replaying ship-heavy operations.
4. Tunnel Specter in Mission 4.
5. Proud Shoulders in Operation Long Shot.
6. Aegis Penetrator in Mission 9.
7. Rapid Dragon Slayer in Mission 12.
8. The Mission 14 no-detection medal.
9. Land Piscivore in Mission 23.
10. Any already-near counter or S-rank medal that fits your existing progress.

This is a suggested pool, not a guaranteed ten-sortie route. Bronze and Silver Ace may take many missions, while Ship of Liberty depends on your existing ship total. Replace a long counter with a medal your save has nearly completed. If you are already working on all Ace S ranks, the four overlapping S-rank medals can replace several mission challenges. If your Marksman counter is close to Silver, finish it during another replay rather than starting a new campaign restriction.

Combine goals only when their conditions do not work against each other. A Mission 9 replay can pursue Aegis Penetrator while adding ship, hostile, and machine-gun kills, but the medal challenge should remain the priority. Likewise, a Mission 23 attempt can advance Land Piscivore and Ship of Liberty together. When a mission contains a protected unit or a timed target, abandon optional counter progress if it threatens the actual medal condition. Finishing one confirmed medal is more useful than gaining a few kills and having to repeat the sortie.

Avoid using Mission 25 or Mission 27 as a planned slot unless the requirement displayed in your game is clear. Also avoid the no-damage and machine-gun-only campaigns when your only goal is Meritorious Service; their failure cost is much higher than a single mission replay.

How to Plan the Six Restricted Campaigns

Before the first sortie, write down the restriction and check the aircraft category on every selectable mission. Keep a mission-by-mission record of the aircraft used and the successful clear. This will not change how the game validates the run, but it gives you a way to find a likely mistake instead of blindly repeating the whole campaign.

For class runs, build a usable roster before starting. Carrier operations can narrow the available aircraft, so confirm that your chosen class has an eligible option. Do not combine two restrictions merely because they sound compatible. A machine-gun-only Attacker run may save one campaign if everything goes well, but it also makes air-heavy missions substantially harder and increases the cost of uncertainty.

For no-damage and machine-gun-only runs, follow the requirement displayed by the game. The available information does not establish that checkpoint retries erase earlier damage or prohibited weapon use. Do not assume a restart repairs the run unless the medal screen confirms the award after completion.

Why a Medal May Not Unlock

Check these causes before repeating a long run:

• You used Free Mission for a campaign-wide condition. Use a complete Campaign run for class, no-damage, and machine-gun-only medals.
• You cleared the mission but missed the stricter condition. Escort survival is not the same as zero escort damage, and Mission 14 requires avoiding all radar detection.
• The wrong weapon got the final hit. Marksman counts aircraft destroyed by machine guns.
• You ended before the result was saved. Complete the sortie after meeting a mission challenge.
• You inferred an unresolved trigger. Read the in-game Mission 25 or Mission 27 description instead of relying on an assumed target list or count.
• You confused collections. Assault Records and Campaign Medals are separate; defeating a named ace does not automatically increase the medal total.

Return to Campaign Medals after every deliberate attempt. For Meritorious Service, stop when the menu shows 10 medals. Continue toward all 29 only if full collection is your actual goal.