Aces of Thunder Review Summary

Fun and Engaging Gameplay: The game provides a highly enjoyable and engaging gameplay experience with fun combat, detailed planes, and satisfying air battles. Players find it easy to jump into action and enjoy both single-player and multiplayer modes.

High-Quality Graphics and Sound: The game features top-notch graphics and sound design, with detailed planes, beautiful visuals, and realistic sound effects. Players appreciate the smooth frame rates and appealing graphics on maximum settings.

Variety of Planes and Content: The game includes a variety of maps, theaters, and planes, providing plenty of scenarios and replayability. Players enjoy the different control schemes and the lack of grinding for planes.

Optimized Controls and Settings: The game offers easy setup for HOTAS and other controllers, with configurable keybinds and detailed guides. Players appreciate the optimized controls and management.

Balanced Flight Physics: The game aims for a true-to-life aerial combat experience with a balance between realism and playability. Players appreciate the realistic flight model and the immersive combat flight simulation.

Control and UI Issues: The controls and user interface are widely criticized for being clunky, unintuitive, and poorly designed. Many users struggle with the control schemes and menu navigation, which detracts from the overall experience.

Lack of Content and Polish: The game is criticized for being unfinished and lacking content. Users report numerous bugs, poor graphics, and a general lack of polish, making the game feel rushed and incomplete.

Poor VR Implementation: The game has significant issues with VR, including poor graphics, clunky controls, and a lack of interactive elements. Many users report that the VR experience feels unfinished and poorly optimized.

Graphical and Visual Issues: The game is criticized for its poor graphics and visual issues, including low-resolution textures, graphical artifacts, and a lack of visual polish. Users report that the graphics are not improved over older games and feel dated.

Performance and Optimization Issues: The game suffers from significant performance issues, including poor optimization, lag, stuttering, and crashes. Users report that the game struggles to run smoothly even on high-end hardware.

VR and HOTAS Support: The game offers extensive VR support, including compatibility with various VR headsets like Pimax Crystal and Quest 3. It also supports HOTAS setups, allowing for a more immersive flight simulation experience. However, some users find VR controls challenging and limited in customization.

Diverse Mission Types: The game features a variety of mission types, including single-player missions, multiplayer PvP matches, and historical missions. There is also an editor for creating custom missions, catering to both casual and hardcore players.

Arcade-like Gameplay: The game balances between simulator and arcade-like gameplay, making it accessible to a wider audience. It offers high FPS gameplay and intense dogfights, appealing to those who enjoy arcade shooters.

Quick and Intense Sessions: Designed for quick sessions and immediate action, the game allows players to jump into intense dogfights and dynamic battles with minimal setup time. This makes it ideal for players looking for fast-paced gameplay.

Similar to War Thunder: The game is often compared to War Thunder, particularly in its flight mechanics and gameplay modes. It offers a similar experience to War Thunder's Air Sim mode, appealing to fans of that game.

Mixed graphics and performance feedback: Players report a range of experiences with graphics and performance. Some praise the high-quality graphics and smooth performance on high-end hardware, while others note issues like graphical artifacts, poor anti-aliasing, and performance drops.

VR performance and issues: VR performance varies significantly. Some players experience smooth performance and excellent optimization in VR, while others report crashes, tracking issues, and poor texture quality.

Performance on high-end hardware: High-end hardware generally provides stable framerates and smooth performance, but some players still experience stuttering and compatibility issues, particularly on Linux.

Controller and input issues: Players report various issues with controllers and input systems, including sensitivity problems, tracking delays, and conflicts with VR controllers.

Compatibility with specific hardware: The game runs well on certain setups like MSI laptops with Oculus Pro and RTX 3070 Ti, but struggles with others such as Oculus Debug Tool and older computers.

Consider alternatives to the game: Many players suggest trying other games like VTOL VR, DCS with mods, War Thunder, or IL2BOS for a better or similar experience. Some recommend these alternatives due to potential refund issues with DLCs or for a more immersive experience.

Wait for updates and improvements: Several reviews advise waiting for future updates before purchasing the game. This includes fixes for VR controller requirements, better hand-interactive cockpits, and overall improvements.

Refund and reconsider purchase: Some players have decided to refund the game due to its current state, suggesting that it is not in a playable position yet. They recommend waiting until issues are fixed before considering a purchase.

Mixed recommendations on purchase: Opinions are divided on whether to buy the game. Some highly recommend it, while others suggest waiting unless you are a diehard fan. There are also suggestions to pick it up during a big sale.

Requests for additional game modes: Players express a desire for additional game modes such as a coop campaign or coop mode. Some mention checking out War Thunder DLC for a similar experience.

Steam Deck: The analysis of user feedback reveals significant issues with the game's control schemes, particularly with joysticks and VR controllers. Additionally, the lack of Linux support and problems with performance and graphics have been highlighted as major concerns. These issues contribute to a high level of friction and dissatisfaction among users.

Monetization: The game has significant monetization issues, particularly with the introduction of Day-1 DLC and concerns about pay-to-win mechanics. Players are frustrated with the additional costs and the potential for paying players to gain advantages in multiplayer. The presence of overpriced content further exacerbates these concerns.

Early Access Mentioned: Players noted that the game is in Early Access, which may impact their experience and expectations.