Shoot down fighters on a turn-by-turn basis on Firaxis’s latest mobile game.
After previously announcing an affinity for ancient flying deathtraps, Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol is now ready for departure on iOS devices as of now. The name isn’t just a tradition here, as Mr. Meier’s himself was involved in the creating, designing, and even programming of the game. Ace Patrol will let players fight their own WWI as they conduct aerial battles and manage a roster of pilots, all via their prefered Apple devices.
Players will lead their menagerie of pilots across 120 different missions and outfit them with any of 30 different period aircraft. All the action takes place turn-by-turn. Since each mission can have long-term consequences, it’s a bit like “XCOM: Sopwith Camel Edition“. Just as with Firaxis’s other big strategy title, you’ll get to upgrade your surviving pilots and mourn when the ones you gave clever names to inevitably perish. Multiplayer comes in the form of hotseat two player or asynchronous multiplayer through Game Center.
If there’s one genre that works well on a mobile platform, it’s turn-based strategy. As Firaxis’s Pete Murray told Polygon, fans of the studio’s take on turn-based strategy will find a lot to “get their teeth into it.” Of course, if that’s not enough strategy for your diet, you can always just wait for the full XCOM iOS port to finish.
This will be Firaxis’s second original mobile title. Released last year, Haunted Hollow went for a decidedly mobile-friendly art style and launched with a warm reception. More importantly, it also featured the same free business model that Ace Patrol has, which Touch Arcade described as “[in-app purchases] done right.” It sounds like Firaxis knows how not to ruin a f2p game with a crappy business model, which is nice.
You can download Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol from the App Store for free, with extra planes and missions available as in-app purchases.
