Ace Combat 8 Dev Says Tasha Was the Game's 'Most Expensive' Character to Design

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve brand director Kazutoki Kono joked that developers spent so long working on Tasha that she ended up being the “most expensive character” in the entire game.

Kono visited China for the first time to answer questions in a group interview with the media following a hands-on demo for the game, where he opened up about how popular Tasha has become over the last few months.

The pink-haired pilot is a fan favorite, and the game hasn’t even come out yet; set to release on October 2, oodles of future players are already obsessed with Tasha Severskaya, a former “star pilot in Yuktobania's acrobatic team, Zvezda.” Tasha hopped aboard the Endurance to capture publicity footage, but the ensuing war kept her on the vessel, and now she’s part of the Joker Flight squad.

Speaking with the media, Kono admitted that he was surprised by how popular Tasha had become on social media, revealing that he’s personally on “Team Kate Evans,” the Lieutenant Commander and leader of Queen Flight. He also revealed that Tasha took the longest to develop out of any other character in the game, since the team kept tweaking different aspects of her design to make sure they got her just right.

“Work on Tasha started relatively early, and she was originally designed by a different artist. She is also the character that took the longest to finalize. Her story and direction were already set, but we kept modifying various aspects afterward, making her the character we refined the longest during development. That's why inside the development team, we jokingly call her 'the most expensive character,'” he said, per Invenglobal.

As for why she’s so popular, Kono thinks it has to do with her fashion sense, saying her pink hair and outfits reflect trends that are currently popular among fans.

“I think elements like her personality, outfit, and especially her sense of fashion in wearing military attire so uniquely happened to fit current trends well, which contributed to all the attention she received,” he explained.

We got the chance to preview Ace Combat 8 this summer, with IGN’s Will Borger saying it was a "very grounded game" that left him “satisfied, but knowing [he] still had so much more to do.” He also got to speak with the devs about their ambitious plans for the game’s multiplayer, which will include 100-player lobbies, several different mission types, and a co-op warfare mode.

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve releases on October 2, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam.