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World of Warplanes Preview for PC

World of Warplanes Preview for PC

Take To The Sky!

During E3 last month, I got to sit in a boardroom with the team at Wargaming.net and talk about their upcoming flight combat simulator, World of Warplanes. If the name sounds sort of familiar, you’ve probably heard about their other title, World of Tanks, which they claim has over 30 million registered users from 203 countries (a game they’re also continuing to expand with fresh tank types.) With a fan base that broad and massive, it’s no wonder they’re so excited about adding another leg to the franchise.

World of Warplanes Screenshot

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World of Warplanes was designed with the warplane fanatic in mind. That means the team has done painstaking research to ensure that the specs of the planes jive with what your history teacher would tell you about them. Of course, this means the planes are broken in to different eras because it simply wouldn’t be fair to force, say, a biplane to compete against a jet. I asked how this affects gameplay balance, using the hypothetical example that perhaps in one era of aviation history, the U.S. had inferior planes to those of another country. Couldn’t players potentially become frustrated by such historical accuracy? The team told me to not worry; they’ve been working very hard to deliver a well-balanced experience.

Now, part of this comes with separating the planes into tiers. At the bottom tier, your planes will be easier to pilot than planes of a higher tier. As your skill increases, you’ll be able to pilot planes in higher tiers with higher difficulty levels. I got to spend about a half hour playing World of Warplanes for myself, and I can attest that there’s definitely a learning curve. Playing for the first time, I was honestly willing to get into the cockpit of something a bit easier to use.

World of Warplanes Screenshot

Now, one of the things we talked about concerning realism was the amount of ammo each plane could hold. I explained to the team that I had been playing fairly loose and reckless with my ammo, and that I had managed to run out. They were quite surprised at this feat of mine, as they had not heard of it happening before. Though, they did admit that in keeping up with the realism thing, there was a limit to how much each plane would realistically carry. This means that you’re supply isn’t infinite; you’ll want to conserve your ammo when possible, not firing until you’re sure you’ve got your enemy locked down in your sights. Obviously, I suck at this.

Another cool tidbit that was explained to me was that as your plane will get lighter as you drop bombs, thus you’ll notice slight changes as to how your plane handles after a bombing run. It sounds like these guys have truly covered all their bases here.

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World of Warplanes Screenshot

We talked a little bit about the various plane types. I was told there are 59 total planes here so far (a number they hope to increase to about 100 before the game’s official launch), hailing from the U.S., Germany, and Russia. These are divided into four categories: light, heavy, ground assault, and the U.S.-only carrier class. I was also told there are currently four different maps available.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, World of Warplanes is part of a larger franchise that began with World of Tanks. The Wargaming.net service will be used to ensure that this is one unified experience, going as far as to share resources between the two games (some of your XP, currency, etc. will be able to carry over.)

World of Warplanes Screenshot

And if that’s not exciting enough, the Wargaming.net team was giddy to tell me about the other project their working on, World of Battleships. Though details were scarce on this future title, the obvious question was, will these three games ever combine into one singular experience? Will we be able to drop bombs on tanks or deploy airplanes from battleships? Well, the team didn’t want to commit to any concrete answers, but it’s definitely something they’ve been thinking about.

Now, World of Warplanes is a free-to-play title with a microtransaction store, which means I had to sit through the obligatory spiel about how this isn’t a pay-to-win game. We’ll see if they can keep those promises once the game launches, but they seem to be doing a fine job with World of Tanks, so I’m not all that concerned.

World of Warplanes is currently in closed beta, so sign up and see if you can get yourself into the action early.

Game Features:

  • World of Warplanes is a flight combat MMO action game set in the Golden Age of military aviation.
  • Throwing players into a never-ending tussle for air dominance, World of Warplanes allows players to build full-scale careers as a virtual pilot across several key eras of warfare, from taking to the skies in the biplanes of the 1930s to destroying the competition in jet fighters from the Korean War.
  • Players choose from three main warplane classes: light and agile fighters capable of engaging enemies in close dogfights, heavy fighters with deadly straight attacks, and ground-attack planes, a fearsome threat for ground targets.

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