Please recommend a good PC WW1 or WW2 air game

[Intrafinesse]

I have not played PC games in over 35 years.
I am interested in WW1 or WW2.
I don't have a gaming PC, but don't care about super cool graphics.
My PC would have been a gaming PC 10 years ago.

 

[ARTESH]

WW1 PC Games:

Ace of Aces,
Knights of the Sky,
Red Baron,
Wings Over Flanders Fields,
First Eagles: The Great War,
Flying Circus: Vol-1 & Vol-2

WW2 PC Games:

Crimson Sky: High Road to Revenge
Air Conflicts: Pasific Carriers
Air Conflicts: Secret War
B-17 the Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th
Secret Weapons Over Normandy
Battlestations: Pasific
Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WW2
Blazing Angels 1: Squadrons of WW2
Warthunder
IL-2 Sturmmovik
DCS World


Although not directly related to aviation, but have many mods for time era you asked for:

Men of War / Call to Arms
Arma Reforged / Arma Cold War Crisis

 

[ARTESH]

I have not played PC games in over 35 years.
I am interested in WW1 or WW2.
I don't have a gaming PC, but don't care about super cool graphics.
My PC would have been a gaming PC 10 years ago.

To see if any game runs on your pc or not, check out Benchmark site or similar sites. Just enter your pc specifics and the game you want to check. Simple and easy.

 

[SaparotRob]

WW1 PC Games:

Ace of Aces,
Knights of the Sky,
Red Baron,
Wings Over Flanders Fields,
First Eagles: The Great War,
Flying Circus: Vol-1 & Vol-2

WW2 PC Games:

Crimson Sky: High Road to Revenge
Air Conflicts: Pasific Carriers
Air Conflicts: Secret War
B-17 the Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th
Secret Weapons Over Normandy
Battlestations: Pasific
Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WW2
Blazing Angels 1: Squadrons of WW2
Warthunder
IL-2 Sturmmovik
DCS World


Although not directly related to aviation, but have many mods for time era you asked for:

Men of War / Call to Arms
Arma Reforged / Arma Cold War Crisis

I might have one of these in my stash in New York. I'm returning on the 27th.

 

[Intrafinesse]

I work in NYC.

I used to play PC air games in the 80s and 90s.
They were fun, though obviously the graphics are nothing like todays.

 

[ARTESH]

I work in NYC.

I used to play PC air games in the 80s and 90s.
They were fun, though obviously the graphics are nothing like todays.

It all depends what is priority no1 for you? Graphics? Compatibilty? Commiunity? Mods / DLCs? Genre? Story?

For me personally, graphics is the least important one.

I still play Mount and Blade Warband, Men of War, Arma Cold War Crisis, and The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. None have jawdropping graphics by today standards, but they have active Modding Community.

 

[Marcel]

Is Knights of the Sky still a thing? I played that on my Amiga in 1994.

 

[Intrafinesse]

It all depends what is priority no1 for you? Graphics? Compatibilty? Commiunity? Mods / DLCs? Genre? Story?

For me personally, graphics is the least important one.

I still play Mount and Blade Warband, Men of War, Arma Cold War Crisis, and The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. None have jawdropping graphics by today standards, but they have active Modding Community.

Graphics is the least important, accuracy/realism is the most important.

 

[ARTESH]

Is Knights of the Sky still a thing? I played that on my Amiga in 1994.

I think i had the Disk!!! Perhaps it can be found on GOG.

 

[ARTESH]

Graphics is the least important, accuracy/realism is the most important.

Then DCS World, IL-2 Sturmovik or Warthunder are your things. Although Warthunder is not a dedicated aviation sim, it's more likea combined arms battle simulator.

There is another game, called World of Warplanes, which is only about War planes, as name sugests, but not sure if its still online or not.

 

[Boom]

For WWI IMHO you can't go past Red Baron 3D or Wings Over Flanders Field. Although RB3D is dated in graphics, it's still a classic. And available from GoG for peanuts $.

Wings Over Flanders Field is the modern day equivalent, with modern graphics, superb selection of aircraft and one of the best campaign modes available (of any sim)!

WWII has to be IL-2 Sturmovik 1946. Reasonable graphics, great selection of aircraft and easy computer requirements. Falls down in poor campaign mode. Still, if you are happy to fly single missions, or the multiple mini campaign missions built by the IL-2 community, you'll be kept busy for years.

Personally I still beatle around in EAW and Battle Of Britain II, and MiG Alley for my jet needs. Luckily I still have an old, but working, Win 98 computer which does the job well for the old sims.

For me, gamplay is far more important than graphics.

 

[Intrafinesse]

What are the acronyms:
GoG

Benchmark site (for compatibility) - is it Home - UserBenchmark

Gaming score 28% (I have a Nvidia GTX 970 graphics card)
"22.3% is a below average 3D score (RTX 5070 = 100%). This GPU can handle older games but it will struggle to render recent games at resolutions greater than 1080p. (Note: general computing tasks don't require 3D graphics)"

I built my PC in 2019

 

[ARTESH]

What are the acronyms:
GoG

Benchmark site (for compatibility) - is it Home - UserBenchmark

Gaming score 28% (I have a Nvidia GTX 970 graphics card)
"22.3% is a below average 3D score (RTX 5070 = 100%). This GPU can handle older games but it will struggle to render recent games at resolutions greater than 1080p. (Note: general computing tasks don't require 3D graphics)"

I built my PC in 2019

GoG, I think stands for Good Old Games or sth like that. It's an Online shop dedicated to Games old or the ones that cannot be found / bought online anymore.

Beyond Hardware like CPU and RAM, you must also check if your PC can run DirectX 12 or other essensial softwares, Phisic Engines or similar.

Then comes the famous Comoatibilty problem... running older games on much newer systems... a google search combining Game Name and your Operating System, is ussually enough to find a solution for this.