Launching the game
After you run the installer, start Aces from the Start menu, or from the desktop icon if you chose to create one. The game opens in a window. Press F11 at any time to switch between full screen and a window.
You need a 64-bit version of Windows 10 or 11 and a graphics card that supports OpenGL 3.3, which almost every card from the last ten years does. A keyboard is all you need to play. A mouse or joystick is optional.
No sound? The game makes all of its sounds as it runs, so there are no audio files to go missing. If you hear nothing, check the Windows volume mixer, then press K in case you muted the game.
Choosing a mission
The first screen is the Select Mission list. Every mission shows its name and which side you fly for: United States or Imperial Japan. Practice missions with no objectives, such as Free Flight, are tagged sandbox.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| ↑ ↓ or W S or mouse wheel | Move up and down the list |
| Home / End | Jump to the top or bottom of the list |
| Enter, Space or click | Choose the mission and go to the aircraft list |
| R, or click RECON | Open Recon for the highlighted mission (see below) |
| F2 | Joystick settings |
| Esc or Q | Quit the game |
Recon: scouting the area
Every mission has a RECON link at the right-hand end of its row. It opens a 3D map of the mission area before you fly it. You can see the islands, where the ships and ground targets are, and the zones that matter, such as the fleet you have to protect or the base you return to. The side panel shows the briefing, a clickable list of zones (click one to centre the view on it), and how many ships and vehicles each side has.
| Input | What it does |
|---|---|
| Left-drag | Orbit the camera around the view |
| Right-drag or W A S D | Pan across the map |
| Mouse wheel | Zoom in and out |
| R | Reset the view |
| Esc | Close Recon |
Tip. Before any strike or bombing mission, look at Recon for the direction from your start point to the target and to your home zone. In flight, zones are drawn as blue-green rings on the sea with a faint glowing wall above them. Only Flight Training's nav ring also gets an on-screen pointer, so to find your way home you'll use the zone's glow and your compass heading.
Choosing an aircraft
After you pick a mission, the Select Aircraft page lists the aircraft you can fly in it. Normally that's every aircraft from the mission's side. Some missions only allow one type: torpedo missions, for example, only offer torpedo bombers. Highlight an aircraft to see a 3D preview and its main numbers:
- Top speed in km/h
- Armor: how much damage it can take
- Ammo: total rounds for its guns
- Ordnance: how many bombs, or its one torpedo
Press Enter to take off, or Esc to go back to the mission list. The License / credit link above the preview shows who made the 3D model.
Pick an aircraft that can do the job. The game lets you take a fighter on a strike mission, but a Wildcat can't sink a carrier with guns alone. Guns can't damage ships. Only bombs and torpedoes can. Each mission on the Missions page lists the recommended aircraft.
In the air
Every mission starts in the air, already flying. For the first few seconds the briefing appears on screen, and the Objectives panel in the upper-left shows your tasks. Each task is ticked off as you complete it. On the Flying & Combat page you'll find a guide to everything else on the screen.
Press F1 (or H) for the controls, and F4 for a scrollable reference on aiming and tactics. The game pauses while either one is open.
The pause menu
Press Esc during a flight to pause. The pause page has three buttons side by side: Resume flight, Change aircraft and Quit game. Below them is the full mission list, so you can switch straight to a different mission. Use ← → to move between the buttons and ↓ to go into the mission list. Esc again resumes your flight.
There's also a separate photo pause on P. It freezes the action but still lets you move the camera and look around, so you can line up a screenshot with F10.
When a mission ends
A mission ends with MISSION ACCOMPLISHED when every objective is done. It ends with MISSION FAILED if you're shot down, crash, or break a rule such as letting bombers reach the fleet. Your kill count is shown either way.
- R restarts the mission from the beginning. You can do this at any time, not just at the end.
- Esc returns to the mission menu.
- F8 plays a replay of the sortie you just flew. See Replay controls.
In the sandbox missions (Free Flight), you respawn automatically a few seconds after being shot down, and new enemies keep arriving.
Setting up a joystick
Plug the stick in before you launch the game. It is detected automatically, and while it's connected the F1 help screen shows its name and a live readout of every axis and button. You can use that readout to find out which number is which on an unfamiliar stick.
Press F2 from anywhere (the menus, in flight, or the pause page) to open Joystick Settings:
- Select an action with ↑ ↓ and press Enter.
- Move the axis or press the button you want to use for it.
- On an axis row, press I if the control works the wrong way round, for example if pulling back makes the nose go down.
- Backspace clears a binding. Esc or F2 closes the page.
You can bind axes for roll, pitch, yaw and throttle. You can bind buttons for fire, bomb/torpedo, rudder left and right, view toggle, target vector, and all the look directions, including diagonals. Bindings are saved automatically and are there the next time you play. The keyboard and mouse still work alongside the stick.
Safe Mode
During installation you can tick Install "Safe Mode". This adds an Aces (Safe Mode) shortcut that draws the game on the CPU instead of the graphics card. Use it only if the normal game won't start, for example on a PC with no working graphics driver or inside a virtual machine. It works almost anywhere but runs much more slowly. If you didn't install it and need it, run the installer again and tick the option.