Plus, the currency and research required to progress in the second and third tier of the game lead to some real doldrums. Rather than having everything laid-out in a simple step-by-step progression, the War Thunder tech tree is jammed full of weird side-branches and a few too many marginal upgrades. This is where War Thunder badly lags behind World of Warplanes and World of Tanks. The aircraft are a lot harder to handle and the stakes are a lot higher, but that only serves to heighten the authenticity.

Instead of just racing to shoot up all the other team's tanks or airbases, you might be waging a carrier battle in the Pacific, or trying to escort bombers to a target. You can also crank up the realism, which does away with respawns and puts you into more varied tactical situations. It's not a stretch to say that War Thunder is the Red Orchestra of air combat. Bringing all the pieces together is very difficult but also very satisfying. In War Thunder, I always feel like I'm actually in the cockpit, and every kill is a story to tell.Įven on the arcade settings, where the planes are extremely forgiving and every battle is basically an aerial melee, War Thunder forces players to learn and use basic flight maneuvers and aerial tactics. It's a shooter where your avatar is a plane. World of Warplanes doesn't come close its planes are too confined by the game's simple physics. More important, War Thunder's air combat is simply some of the best and most intense I've ever experienced. That's doubly true when I'm using special flight-sim gear like a TrackIR head-head tracker and a flight stick. It feels like I'm really up there at the controls of a plane, playing among the peaks and valleys of a cloud formation. Just taking a plane up through the clouds, where the world beyond your wingtips vanishes into fog while condensation whips over the canopy, gives way to the most extraordinary joy and elation when you burst into the clear blue sky. The game is breathtaking when you're in the air, soaring over mountain valleys or Pacific atolls. At its best, War Thunder is a game of rare beauty and grace.

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