Ace Combat 8 Characters: The Eight Confirmed Pilots and Crew

Quick answer: ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE has eight named characters, split evenly between the four pilots of Joker Flight and the four officers who keep the carrier Endurance running. The game ships with full voice acting in English and Japanese only, and every announced role has both a Western and a Japanese actor attached. You yourself play a silent, nameless pilot who inherits the Wings of Theve callsign — the official roster never gives the player character a name.

This page is written on September 27, 2026, five days ahead of launch. Names, units and actors below come from the official Bandai Namco character pages and the Bandai Namco Asia voice cast announcement; anything beyond these eight is marked not yet confirmed.

The Eight Named Characters

Joker Flight is the flight you fly in; the Endurance group is the ship's command, maintenance and medical staff you talk to between missions.

Official source: ACE COMBAT 8 characters page

Who Voices Each Character

Both the English and Japanese lines are full audio, so the cast you hear depends on the language setting you pick. Japanese names are written here in romanized form.

The cast list came from the Bandai Namco Asia announcement, which press relayed alongside the character profiles, and the same pairings were cross-checked against the official EU pages. Two names there are worth knowing before you pick a language: Chika Anzai and Emi Lo voice Tasha, the Joker Flight member with the most pre-launch coverage, and their pairing is covered in depth on the Tasha Severskaya page.

Notice how the flight splits. Joker Flight gets the four pilots you fly alongside in the air, while the Endurance officers — command, maintenance and medical — speak mostly in the between-mission conversations that the first-person cutscenes are built around. Nothing in the announcement suggests a ninth character is waiting in the wings, and additional cast members beyond these eight remain not yet confirmed.

Official source: Bandai Namco EU character pages

Joker Flight Versus the Endurance Crew

The split matters because it explains how the story is framed. Joker Flight is the combat unit: Cope as the original leader, Baxter as the number two, Tasha as the ensign in the three slot, and Coster in the four slot. You join that flight as the silent protagonist after the Wings of Theve holder dies, which is why briefings and banter keep circling back to who you are replacing.

The Endurance side handles everything on the ship. Kate Evans leads Queen Flight, the carrier's other squadron, and shows up as the hard-edged commander. Jessica Pike runs the vessel as executive officer, David Jenkins keeps the airframes flying as maintenance chief, and Adelina Santos is the medical corpsman willing to challenge the XO when a patient is on the line.

Between missions the campaign uses first-person cinematics aboard the Endurance, so you talk to these people face to face rather than through menu text. That structure is the main reason the roster is small and dense: eight named people carry the whole campaign, and the official material frames it as a story of identity and duty.

The Enemy Ace Squadron Is Not Named

PlayStation Blog preview material promises combat against an enemy ace squadron, but no official source has published that unit's name or its roster. The correct answer today is not yet confirmed.

The opposition itself is named, even if its aces are not: the Republic of Sotoa blitzes the Federation of Central Usea in July 2029 and uses the orbital kinetic bombardment known as Tonitrus Spears to break the FCU navy. What is missing is any published call sign for the pilots flying against you, so any name you find is fan shorthand rather than official copy.

You will see the community name Shadow Squadron attached to the enemy in fan spaces and trope databases. That is a community label only, not an official one, and it should not be repeated as fact. The same rule applies to any voice actor list that assigns additional cast members: the official count stays at eight characters, and the full cast beyond them is not yet confirmed.

What the Player Character Is

The protagonist is a silent, nameless pilot — no custom name, no spoken lines in the announced material, and no entry on the official roster. The callsign you inherit, Wings of Theve, is listed under Jan Cope, the pilot who held it first.

That inheritance is the story hook. Wings of Theve is a manufactured legend tied to the FCU capital, and the official site says outright that the legend was a lie built to keep morale alive. You fly under a name that was propaganda, next to people who know it, which is what the between-mission conversations keep picking at.

For the setting around them — the 2029 Sotoa invasion, the Tonitrus Spears and the war itself — start with the what is Ace Combat 8 page, and see how missions are structured on the gameplay and campaign page.

FAQ

How many characters are in Ace Combat 8?

Eight named characters: four in Joker Flight (Jan Cope, Ellington Baxter, Tasha Severskaya, William Coster) and four on the carrier Endurance (Kate Evans, Jessica Pike, David Jenkins, Adelina Santos). A cast beyond those eight is not yet confirmed.

Who is the main character in Ace Combat 8?

A silent, nameless pilot who inherits the Wings of Theve callsign aboard the Endurance after its previous holder dies. The official roster gives the player no name and no listed actor.

Is Ace Combat 8 fully dubbed?

Full audio covers English and Japanese. The other eleven supported languages receive interface and subtitle support only, out of thirteen languages in total.

Who are the English and Japanese voice actors?

Every pairing is listed in the voice table above, from Mike Bodie and Kenjiro Tsuda as Jan Cope to Melissa Medina and Yuko Sanpei as Adelina Santos. Tasha Severskaya is voiced by Emi Lo in English and Chika Anzai in Japanese.

What is the enemy ace squadron called?

Not yet confirmed. Official previews mention an unnamed enemy ace squadron. The name Shadow Squadron comes from community sources and has never been confirmed by Bandai Namco.

Does the roster appear outside the game?

Yes. Four of them — Jan Cope, Ellington Baxter, Tasha Severskaya and Adelina Santos — have official character cards among this site's artwork, and the HOUR ZERO live-action series runs on separate characters entirely.

Related Guides

• Tasha Severskaya in ACE COMBAT 8: Story and Voice Cast — the Joker No. 3 pilot, her Zvezda past and both voice actresses.
• Ace Combat 8 Hour Zero Explained — what the live-action prequel is and when each episode lands.
• Ace Combat 8 Gameplay and Campaign Structure — how first-person cinematics and missions fit around the roster.
• What Is Ace Combat 8: Setting, Story and Release — the 2029 Usea setting the cast is fighting over.