Skies above the Great War

My spreadsheet instincts fired the moment I saw this game's two-layer structure: a persistent real-time strategy map covering 10,000 square kilometres of the Western Front, and a plane-control layer you can drop into at literally any second. That combination is rare to the point of being almost unique on PC right now, and for a solo-developer project it is genuinely ambitious. You pick Allies or Germany, set your starting year, and from there the war runs on its own clock whether you are watching or not. The strategy layer is the heart of the experience. You recruit and train pilots, each with individual talent ratings that need to be developed through careful mission assignment before they become reliable aces. You place aircraft orders through manufacturers like Fokker or Sopwith, who will also research upgraded models if you give them time and resources - so there is a genuine technology race running underneath the shooting. Mission types cycle across the map: reconnaissance photography, front patrols, strategic bombing runs, and balloon-hunting sorties. None of these is enormously complex on its own, but juggling all four mission categories across multiple airfields while the AI opponent keeps pace produces a satisfying resource-pressure loop. Crucially, individual squadrons or even entire management areas can be handed off to the AI, so you can dial your involvement up or down at any point. The action layer is arcade, not simulation. Controls lean heavily toward mouse-and-keyboard rather than gamepad, and anyone expecting Red Baron-grade flight physics will be disappointed. The planes handle distinctly from each other, damage modelling produces visible sparks and smoke, and guns have a satisfying physical weight to them - but the flight feel has drawn consistent criticism for being jittery, particularly in sharp turns. The game has received post-launch patches that addressed the worst of the launch-day crashes and performance drops, and options to switch between Vulkan and DirectX 12 rendering were added to help with hardware-specific issues. Stability is measurably better than it was at release, though players still flag occasional bugs and a save system that could use more polish. The tutorial situation is a legitimate concern for newcomers. Community feedback consistently calls it insufficient, and new players have reported genuine confusion about core UI interactions - one community thread noted the black-on-brown text contrast makes reading a chore. That said, the underlying systems are not actually deep by grand-strategy standards. Someone who has touched any Paradox title or even an older operational wargame will parse the airfield management within an hour. The campaign structure covering the full span of WWI, with historically inspired pilot names you can further customise via editable save files, is a nice touch that the more invested player will appreciate. Where the game sits in the market is its strongest argument. There is simply nothing else current that blends real-time air-force management with direct aircraft control in a WW1 setting at this price tier. Neither the strategy layer nor the arcade layer would hold up alone as a full product - reviewers and players agree on that - but the constant switching between them, watching a bombing mission you ordered unfold and then personally diving in to cover your fighters when things go wrong, creates a loop that is genuinely its own thing. The ceiling for depth is low by grand-strategy standards, and the rough edges are real. But for the price and the concept, this scratches an itch that nothing else currently does.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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