

As the name infers, you'll be taking part in one of World War II's biggest and bloodiest battles, and to wit, developer 1C Game Studios has built a Stalingrad on scale with the real-world location. In order for you to be found.well, that's another pretty huge undertaking. That's the process the AI will undertake just to get in your airspace. While you can take off with a single button press, there's also a more complicated multi-step process that requires you check gauges, flip switches, and pull levers first.

In Battle of Stalingrad, your enemy will make every crucial and complicated step available to you. Think about it in other dogfighting games when you face off against the AI, where do they come from? How often do the other pilots have an objective besides “shoot you down” (or on rare occasion, “attack a stronghold”)? With most other flight-focused titles, all that matters is that your enemy is in the air and knows what to attack. Particularly, AI opponents smart enough to pilot a drone. While IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad is still approachable to folks who have yet to unbox their first flightstick, it should have plenty to offer for veterans of air combat. Despite the existence of the term “auto-pilot” and arcade-style titles like Ace Combat that purport to teach you dogfighting over the course of a ten-minute tutorial, it takes a lot of training and time in the air to properly pilot a plane, let alone engage in air-based attacks.
