Ground of Acesis a remarkably unique game in its genre, taking the timeless base-building/management sim and giving it a coat of paint that, frankly, I’m shocked is so fresh. That is my way of saying thatGround of Aces‘ theme is so good that I’m surprised I haven’t heard of a plethora of other games with the same concept. Not only is the concept strong, butGround of Acesdoes a pretty good job of executing on it, though some early access bugs and work-in-progress content are to be expected before you jump into this unique title.
Ground of Acestakes the familiar colony sim management game in a new direction, challenging players to run an RAF airbase during the Second World War.
For those who perhaps aren’t as knowledgeable on the history of the Second World War (though you probably wouldn’t be reading this review if you weren’t), the Battle of Britain was a grueling, multi-year-long engagement that saw the invading Luftwaffe bombing British cities and military installations. The fighting involved all branches of British life, from civilians to military personnel. The Royal Air Force contributed significantly to the eventual British victory that paved the way to finally liberating Europe from Nazi occupation.
As the leader of a rundown RAF airbase,Ground of Acesplaces you in the heart of this dramatic piece of history and challenges you to turn a patch of dirt and trees into the sword of British liberation.
Mechanically speaking, this translates into building and managing both the airbase itself and the crew who work there, managing the ins and outs of daily life while also securing further infrastructure to improve your capability to carry out missions.
The first of your two-fold tasks requires you to purchase and operate a functioning airbase, requiring you to build runways and hangars and then populate them with planes that actually take part in missions. Said planes require victory points (rewarded by completing missions) and runways of certain tiers to operate.
The parameters for building your airstrips are a bit too specific in the current build of the game. Of course, you want a level of demand and a goal to work towards when planning and building, so demanding specifications can make something as simple as a flat strip of land feel more like a goal to accomplish. However, these specifics become weird when a level one airstrip cannot be built when its width is large enough to qualify as a level two airstrip in that specific area. When the game prevents me from building said level one airstrip until I downgrade the width, things start to feel a little silly.
The second part is gathering the materials, both to upgrade your facilities and manage the morale and livelihood of the soldiers who work on your base. Not only do soldiers need to eat, sleep, and relax, but resources such as wood and metal need to be processed and produced. This is done with a system for managing your crew’s work schedules and needs that players of the gameRimWorldwould be very familiar with.
While you do receive a weekly stipend of these goods for successfully running your airfield, in theory, you will need to branch out and make use of the natural resources around you to maintain and advance.
I say “in theory” because the truth is that the game doesn’t make it very hard to outproduce your needs. I found myself quickly approaching the game’s second and third tiers of runways without ever facing a serious resource shortage or morale penalty. Sure, I didn’t do so by relying only on resources sent from home base, but I never had to really micromanage the gathering and production processes either.
Thus, we come to the real problem withGround of Acesas it exists in its current Early Access state. With no clear endgame or defined progression, the game quickly plateaus and becomes both easily manageable and boring, leaving you with the feeling that there isn’t a whole lot more you need to be doing. While, sure, later in the game attacks from the Luftwaffe become more intense and challenging, aerial missions continue to feel rather easy to accomplish (if you send multiple planes at once), and there’s a lot of dead space where you kind of wonder “OK, I did all this… so why am I still playing?”
As can be expected of most Early Access games, my only real complaint aboutGround of Acesis a lack of content: a lack of clear progression and endgame, a lack of satisfying depth to the gameplay (it seems you get your hands on everything there is to do very fast), a lack of music (I got sick of that one track very fast), etc. The game is in a solid, playable state, but as it stands, you will feel pretty satisfied with about 2–4 hours of gameplay; I trust, however, that as it continues to develop, the devs behind it will shape it into a really incredible entry into the genre.
Despite its current limitations,Ground of Acesshows immense promise as a unique and compelling entry in the management sim genre. Its fresh setting, charming presentation, and accessible mechanics make it an easy game to fall into, even if it doesn’t yet have the staying power of more established titles. What it lacks in content, it makes up for in potential, and those willing to invest in the game during its Early Access phase may find a lot to enjoy already. With continued development,Ground of Acescould easily become one of the standout strategy sims of the decade.
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