Screenshots
Watch trailer on Steam ↗Blue Sky Aces
Curious Dog Games · Published by Curious Dog Games
Last updated 27 Sept 2026
A retro inspired, stylized world war 1 flight simulator that puts you in control of some of the worlds first war planes. Zoom above the trenches as you engage the enemy in fierce close range dogfights, where any moment could be your last.
Action, Indie, Simulation · More free games
Control historic aircraft and engage in thrilling close-range aerial combat in Blue Sky Aces. This indie action-simulation game transports you to the skies of World War I, where each sortie is a test of skill and nerve.
About this game
Experience the thrill of flying in the skies of World War I with our retro-inspired flight simulator. Fly famous planes like the Fokker Dr1, Airco DH2, Albatros C.III, Fokker E.III, and the Sopwith Camel. Blue Sky Aces takes you back to those early days of flight where man and machine dueled over the skies of western Europe, high above the bloody stalemate in the trenches below. Battle your way through masses of enemy aircraft in close quarters dog fights, take on dangerous missions against observation balloons, and strafe soldiers and other ground targets.
Blue Sky Aces is designed to be quick and easy to learn, with flight physics that strike the perfect balance between realism and fun. This allows you to focus on flying and having fun, without needing to learn complex controls and systems. You don't even need a joystick or a high powered computer to play, a basic computer and a mouse is all that's required.
Key features include:
Play in either first person cockpit view, or third person chase camera perspectives.
Fun flight physics that are easy to learn, but difficult to master.
Unlock new aircraft and upgrades as the war progresses.
Hand crafted single player missions.
Dynamic campaigns with the need to manage aircraft and pilots.
Quick mission builders to allow you to create your own missions.
Great looking stylized graphics.
Large and detailed open world maps.
Learn to fly with the tutorial missions.
Fly aircraft from multiple countries.
Variable difficulty settings to suite all skill levels.
Support for keyboard, mouse, gamepads, joysticks, and other HOTAS devices.
Leaderboards so you can compete with others.
Aircraft that will be included in the first release (note, this list is likely to grow)
Airco DH2
Airco DH4
Albatros D.III
Albatros C.III
Bristol F2
Fokker E.III
Fokker Dr1
Fokker D.VII
Fokker D.VIII
Hansa-Brandenburg D.I
Morane Saulnier Bullet
Nieuport 17
Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5
Sopwith 5F.1 Dolphin
Sopwith Pup
Sopwith Camel
Sopwith Triplane
Spad S.VII
Countries that you'll be able to fly for
Austria-Hungary
Britain
France
Germany
Russia
The game includes a flying tutorial to help get you started, and support for joysticks, gamepads, keyboard, and mouse. The controls can be easily rebound for HOTAS devices for improved immersion. Whether you’re an arcade gamer or a flight simulator enthusiast, Blue Sky Aces has something for everyone.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: X64 architecture with SSE2 instruction set support
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: DX10, DX11, and DX12-capable GPUs
- DirectX: Version 10
- Storage: 500 MB available space
Recommended
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10 or Windows 11
- Processor: X64 architecture with SSE2 instruction set support
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics: DX10, DX11, and DX12-capable GPUs
- DirectX: Version 10
- Storage: 500 MB available space
Supported Languages
Latest news
AnnouncementsOfficial
New Art Style
Welcome to the July 2026 update for Blue Sky Aces, the long overdue update for our retro WW1 flight simulator. In this update we discuss the game's updated art style, and all the awesome improvements to the mission maps. Around this time last year we came to the conclusion that game's art style was preventing us from delivering our vision of the game, and we felt that there were too many inconsistencies in the game's assets. To resolve this we undertook a massive piece of work to reimagine many elements of the game with the intention of migrating all the assets to have a late 1990's look. This work included everything, from the terrain, trees, buildings, aircraft, and other vehicles. There's still a few elements that need to be upgraded, but the current demo should provide a much better idea of where things are going. Checkout the full update in the video below.Read full article on Community Announcements (curiousdoggames)Patch NotesOfficial
March, April & May Update
Welcome to the March, April, & May 2025 update for Blue Sky Aces, a low poly WW1 flight simulator that is currently under development. The last few months have resulted in a big change in direction when it comes to map building, and we've gone back to the future with the new approach. We now have a map builder that we can start to build much larger, and far more detailed maps than ever before. In this update I'll discuss why we changed direction, and demonstrate the new approach. Other work discussed during this video includes: - Improvements to the mouse handling, especially with the simulation flight model. - An updated drag equation to prevent aircraft accelerating too fast. - More realistic handling at the edge of the flight envelope, particularly below the aircraft's stall speed. - And the ability to speed up time to make it more enjoyable to explore the maps.Read full article on Community Announcements (curiousdoggames)Patch NotesOfficial
January & February 2025 Update
Welcome to the January & February 2025 update for Blue Sky Aces, a low poly WW1 flight simulator. The last couple of months have been really busy, but I finally managed to update the demo build on Steam, which importantly includes the new simulation flight model. This had been the source of many sleepless nights during the last quarter of 2024, so it was really great to finally get it released. In this update we show off two new aircraft, the Fokker DVI and the Royal Aircraft Factory Se5a. As part of this work we've also worked to improve the in cockpit animations for the weapons. Other work discussed during this video includes: - Improvements to the bullet hole rendering. - Fixes to the aircraft AI. - Map building from GIS data.Read full article on Community Announcements (curiousdoggames)Patch NotesOfficial
Demo Update - 0.86.41
The version 0.86.41 demo update addresses various minor issues with the aircraft AI such as: Their tendency to always fly at very low altitudes when being attacked. The problem where they would fire continuous bursts of fire that would jam their guns, leaving them unable to attack for long periods of time. Improvements have been done to make them better at aiming at higher deflection angles. They would sometimes attempt maneuvers at speeds and altitudes that could cause a crash. In addition, there has also been a number of other issues and minor improvements: The enemy offscreen direction arrows are now brighter, and resize based on the distance from the player. The scoring system around shooting accuracy has been changed to fix the case where you complete the mission without firing a shot. Accuracy is now just a bonus, and is no longer multiplied by the score. This should result in higher mission scores. Crashing into soldiers no longer stops or bounces the player aircraft. Shooting off the wing, or any other part of an AI aircraft will immediately credit you with the victory to ensure that another aircraft doesn't continue to attack the tumbling aircraft and steal the victory. Crash landing upside down should now end the game with a "crash landed" result. The bombs on the Bristol F.2 are no longer left suspended in mid air when the aircraft loses a wing.Read full article on Community Announcements (curiousdoggames)Patch NotesOfficial
December 2024 Update
Welcome to the December 2024 update for Blue Sky Aces, a low poly WW1 flight simulator. It's been a couple of months since my last update so there's a couple of great new features to talk about, plus an update on the simulation flight model. The first great new feature added is damage visual effects on aircraft, vehicles, and balloons, which simulate bullet holes. This is something that's been sitting in the backlog for a long time, until I discovered a great tutorial to turn simple cubes into tiny decal projectors using a clever shader. The next awesome feature is head tracking, which allows you to look around while flying in first person view in a really natural way, that makes you feel like you're almost in the cockpit. Check out this tutorial that teaches you how to set it up with nothing more than a standard web camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGoRnmXEXYQ Phase one of the simulation flight model is nearly complete, and I'm really hopeful that an update containing all of the above will be released early in January. Until then you can check out the progress in the video below:Read full article on Community Announcements (curiousdoggames)
