World of Warplanes Hands-on Preview

In many ways, World of Warplanes is working from the same set of blueprints that gave us the highly popular World of Tanks. It’s an online game about fighting in historic machines of war, but swapping out their lumbering behemoths for faster and more frantic aerial combat. You start off with a handful of pre World War II aircraft, unlocking machines as you go on that are progressively more up to date and effective. You’ll throw yourself head first into battles with enemy squadrons, earning money and XP, buying gradually better machines with which to move up through gameplay tiers and give yourself more of a challenge to face. Sounds a lot like World of Tanks Doesn’t it? You know, just with planes instead of tanks.

The reality is that switching from slow blocks of metal that require deliberate actions and a well thought-out plan of attack, to faster, more manoeuvrable planes, that in order to stay airborne need to sacrifice heavy weaponry and armour plating, makes for a pretty big shift in gameplay for existing World of Tanks players. Rather than a game where you’re positioning yourself behind a stationary wall waiting for your moment to strike, World of Warplanes is about twitch controls, fast reactions, and being constantly vulnerable and out in the open.

You’ll be seeing the same starting nations from World of Tanks represented – Germany, the US and the USSR – with a sprinkling of Japanese aircraft added in since launch, but I’m sure that we’ll see the number of supported nations grow in much the same way it did in World of Tanks. At this stage there’s a nice selection of craft, with lots of differentiation and each nation having its own evolving styles of planes, much as the different national tanks at the World of Tanks launch all felt nicely distinct.

The aircraft, much like World of Tanks, are split into three different categories; Fighters, Heavy Fighters and Attack Bombers. The fighters provide the fast but un-armoured option, sacrificing power and speed for manoeuvrability and agility. While the heavy fighters lack the tight turns and ability to dodge oncoming attacks they have speed on their side, meaning they can outrun a smaller craft and come around for a highly damaging strafing run.

Lastly, the attack bombers stay out of the main fray, instead taking out ground targets in order to add a multiplier of sorts to your victory conditions, helping you reach them quicker. By placing attack bombers as a secondary role in battle, they’ve avoided the occasional problem held by World of Tanks where the mid-range tanks sometimes felt like the worst of both worlds. Here you’re making a distinct choice: manoeuvrability, power, or secondary role.

The game certainly isn’t as friendly to newcomers as World of Tanks was. Gone are the slow paced matches that give you time to find your feet, replaced instead by fast paced dogfights that need you to be on your A-game from the first moment, but thankfully there’s an included tutorial that does an admirable job of giving you a feel for the basics before you jump in. The game will still pit you against players of a similar vehicle tier, so you shouldn’t be too badly outmatched at the offset. Just be aware that you may need a few matches to get the feel for the way the game wants you to control these aircraft and each of their limitations.

The game is currently still in Closed Beta, with no open release in the immediate future, but they’ve made several updates to the game based on player feedback since the beta started, suggesting that they want to take their time and make sure things are right before opening gameplay up to the masses. The game shows a lot of promise, even if it’s not the same type of game that veteran World of Tanks players might be expecting.

Get more info on the World of Warplanes website.