Warplanes: WW1 Fighters is a new game on SideQuest letting you pilot WW1 biplanes in combat missions.
It’s developed by Polish studio Home Net Games, bringing its experience from successful mobile games to virtual reality. This is a real game, not a side project or tech demo. There’s a free demo plus a full campaign if you purchase it for $9.99 on Itch.io.
The title is nearing the end of initial development, with a major update planned before official release. The free demo lets you play 2 missions and access 6 German planes. If you buy it, though, you get access to the full Central Powers campaign. The next version will add a Triple Entente campaign and 3 of its aircraft: Airco DH.2, Breguet 14 and S.E.5.
Like the game VTOL on SteamVR this is a made-for-VR experience. You directly interact with cockpit controls using your Touch controllers. Most of the time you’ll have one hand on the yoke and the other on the throttle. It’s incredibly immersive compared to thumbsticks.
It’s more of an arcade shooter than a simulator, but there’s a realistic flight model mode available in the settings.
You face off against enemy fighters, bombers, barrage balloons, and even ships. Authentic to the era, you engage in close range dogfights and use hand-dropped bombs.
The graphics may be the best of any Quest-native flight title we’ve seen yet. The cockpits have detailed high resolution textures and the atmospheric lighting is equally as impressive.
SideQuest is the alternate app store for Oculus Quest headsets. To find out how to use it to sideload games like this, check out our detailed step-by-step guide.
