Ground of Aces

I've spent enough hours in colony managers to know when one is hiding real mechanical depth behind a friendly coat of paint, and Ground of Aces is doing exactly that. Blindflug Studios has dropped you into a patch of English countryside in August 1940 and told you to build a functioning RAF airbase before the Luftwaffe turns it into rubble. The comparison points are RimWorld and Hearts of Iron IV, and while the game does not quite reach the obsessive complexity of either, it borrows the right things from both. The resource chain is where this game earns its sim credentials. You clear trees for raw wood, run logs through a Saw Station for planks, feed clay and water into a Brickstation, and eventually synthesize electronics and fuel from a Boiler Tank. Every material left exposed to the elements degrades, so storage placement is not cosmetic, it is load-bearing. Your runway length and construction material directly gate which aircraft you can field: short dirt strips mean biplanes, but pour enough concrete and you unlock multi-engine bombers capable of hitting the Ruhr valley. Aircraft parking size is its own constraint, since a heavy bomber needs a larger hardstand than a Spitfire, and a plane left outside a hangar will deteriorate. Victory Points earned from successful sorties are the currency you spend on new aircraft, which creates a satisfying feedback loop between mission risk, reward, and base expansion. The crew systems add a layer that pure base-builders miss. Pilots and ground staff each carry six trainable skill stats, improved both through combat missions and dedicated training halls you build on-site. Wounded pilots land in the hospital and stay out of rotation for days, so managing pilot depth matters, particularly once HQ starts stacking missions back-to-back. Morale is sustained through recreation buildings stocked with radios, guitars, and posters, and the game actively penalises neglect. Air raid defence requires carefully positioned searchlights and anti-aircraft guns, and when a Luftwaffe bombing run does land, you are rebuilding damaged structures while simultaneously keeping sortie readiness up. That tension is where Ground of Aces is most alive. The honest Early Access caveat is this: once your base reaches self-sufficiency, the pressure eases considerably. Several reviewers and community voices note that mid-to-late gameplay can plateau, with aerial missions feeling manageable rather than punishing if you maintain a reserve of aircraft. There is no defined endgame in the current build, and players who want a tightly scripted campaign conclusion will feel the absence. The roadmap, however, is concrete, with multi-story buildings, historic missions, modding support, and a potential new faction all listed as targets for the road to 1.0. The developer has been consistent about updates, and community-run map jams already show a mod-friendly community forming around the game. For a strategy-and-sim player, the question right now is whether the existing loop, roughly the construction phase through mid-game sortie juggling, is worth the Early Access price of admission. My read: yes, if you enjoy the setup and escalation arc of a colony sim and can accept that the endgame is still being built. The tutorial is genuinely respectful of new players, using contextual tooltips and visible worker pathing to teach systems without a wall-of-text manual. This is not a game that requires 300 hours of genre experience to enjoy on day one. The Franco-Belgian comic-book art direction is distinctive, the sound design is understated and effective, and the game runs cleanly on older hardware. The gaps are real but the foundation is strong.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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