Sky On Fire: 1940 - Early War Sorties
- Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
An Indie World War II Title That Slipped Under Our Radar
During my Christmas break I caught up on all sorts of World War 1 and 2 media with my fiancée. Of them was a video from Showtime112 about the contributions of Polish pilots during The Battle of France in May-June 1940. Seeing the brave Polish pilots flying lesser-known French aircraft made me yearn for the flying similarly obscure aircraft in the same conflict.
For various reasons I never embraced the IL-2 series as my go-to World War II simulator and I avoid playing War Thunder after a few years of near laser focused obsession with it. But frankly, outside of those two intellectual properties there are very few quality options for flight games that focus on World War II aircraft.
During one of my recent searches for upcoming flight games or ones I have missed in the past few years, I came across Sky On Fire: 1940 (2020) by ISNI Industries.
Sky On Fire was released on Itch.io on November 2nd, 2020, though it was also released on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store a month or two before that. While this game can be played on smart phones and computer tablets, I opted for the personal computer version for my first experience.
Simple Looks, Quality Details
While INSI Industries chose to have low poly graphics for the terrain, sky and 3D models, I would not be fooled by equate "basic" graphics to an equally simplistic flight experience. The game uses realistic flight physics and airfoils with a solid aircraft damage model. I can confidently consider this a flight sim lite more than anything else.
Rather than each aircraft having a set number of 'hit points', the damage model of each aircraft is detailed enough to allow for engines to be disabled and specific crew members of larger aircraft to be killed in combat. Fighter sized aircraft can have wings snapped off the fuselage, aircraft can catch fire, flaps can be shot away, etc.
Pilots with good aim and limited ammunition can be immensely effective. Especially with cannon shells being in short supply but highly effective against aircraft of this era. Understanding the muzzle velocity of the weapons used on each aircraft is important. This is something only practice can help players with.
As you would expect from even a semi-realistic flight simulator focused on warbirds, energy management is vital at all times. Even the nimblest fighter with the most lightweight configuration possible is not going to be freely climbing and turning without a care in the world like most flight arcade games. Blacking out, reding out, getting energy trapped by decently challenging AI - do expect the flight experience to be more realistic than you would think it is at first glance.
Aircraft Selection
Compared to IL-2 and War Thunder, you could consider the aircraft list to be lacking. But I'd argue it is short but distinguished. We have to keep in mind that Sky On Fire is a time locked flight sim lite set in the year 1940. The general location all combat takes place in is in the town of Dover and Folkstone in the United Kingdom and the surrounding region. With aircraft only available from England, France, Germany and Italy, this makes sense for the year and location, as that would place most combat happening during the Battle of Britain.
Purchasing this game on Itch.io, there are 28 aircraft available. These include well known fighters like the Spitfire and ME-109, lesser discussed aircraft like the HS-75 and D.520 S and multi-crew aircraft like the He-111 and Blenheim. Many of these have a few specific variants available.
Samples of the aircraft list.
The developer has a few downloadable content packs that add more aircraft, like the Westland Whirlwind, Me-262A-1 and some other funny fictional aircraft designs.
Though, with the game's flight model being realistic enough to truly show the difference between certain aircraft designs, there are cases where one aircraft is simply just better designed and better built leaving only the skill of the pilot of the lesser aircraft to be the deciding factor in victory or loss.
Mod Support
The community around Sky On Fire: 1940 has some interesting mods. A majority of them focus on including other World War II era aircraft that were operational beyond 1940 or adding historic and fictional liveries to the existing aircraft roster. Some of the more advanced mods include jet fighters, new maps and other new vehicles.
While some of the liveries do have websites that can be accessed, most of the mods and custom liveries are scattered on different websites between different creators. Web searching for terms like "Sky On Fire: 1940", "mods", "liveries" and "downloads".
Photo and Video Mode
Any flight game that incorporates an in-game photo mode or video mode earns positive marks from me. I simply have to mention it. In each mode players can control the camera position, adjust zoom, tilt angle and slow motion playback speed. In video mode there are also six camera presets that can be assigned to specific slots making it easier to capture video from multiple dynamic angles easily.
You can tell that in these modes are more designed for smart device use, as the buttons on screen can be mouse clicked to activate them. The camera position can be dragged and dropped using the left and right mouse clicks.
Short Missions
The primary game mode of Sky On Fire is called 'Short Missions'.
Takeoff lets player practice with any aircraft to start up and take off. Landing is the same just focused on landing. Either mode can double as a free flight for players to learn their aircraft of choice without being shot at.
Mission Library offers three single player missions from the developer that give specific mission sets. Scrambling to intercept incoming fighters, leading a small formation of bombers to strike an airfield and intercepting a bomber formation. These are relatively short, straightforward missions.
Dogfight is an air battle generator where players can choose one aircraft type they will fly while choosing the aircraft the enemy will fly. There are settings for time of day, starting altitude, enemy difficulty and amount of aircraft per side. It is possible to have massive air battles up with up to 18 or more aircraft. Nine aircraft on each side.
Mission Editor
To get the most out of Sky On Fire, learn the easy-to-use Mission Editor. For players looking for large scale Battle of Britain style missions, they can create them in Mission Editor. Don't let the name of "Mission Editor" spook you. This is not Digital Combat Simulator or Nuclear Option. In fact, the screenshot below showing a Luftwaffe bomber raid against the port of Dover was created in less than five minutes with roughly 20 to 30 left mouse button clicks.
Turning on the Warships & AAA unit options brings around the true "big battle" feel. Again, keep the point of view of the Battle of Britain in mind. Players flying as an Ally will primarily be locked in air-to-air combat against Axis air attacks.
Players that want to bomb military bases, ports and hunt ship convoys will need to fly as the Axis as all land and sea-based targets will be in the United Kingdom. During air raids and anti-ship attacks, anti-aircraft fire is rather significant. While the volume of AAA is not on the level of what you would see in Hollywood movies, occasionally the accuracy of the incoming flak is so accurate, aborting an attack early to reattack from a new angle is the best course of action. The seemingly low volume of fire has a higher than normal accuracy, but not on the level of the laser accurate AAA fire you might expect from War Thunder AI units around airfields.
With there being no way to set a win or lose condition, players can play these missions until they meet whatever objective they set for themselves before ending the mission or restarting it to play again.
If there were more base game missions like those that could be created in the mission editor, it would be an all-around positive.
Extensive Multi-Crew
Simply calling what Sky On Fire has as multi-crew is a bit of an understatement.
At the most basic level, any aircraft that has more crew than just a pilot can be selected with the Function Keys (F1, F2, F3, etc). When flying as the pilot the gunners will operate autonomously. When taking control of the positions the player must aim each gun manually at the targets. While the computer gunners can do a decent job, sometimes the human aim is just better.
In aircraft that have bombardiers, players must occupy the position and work the bomb sight. Manually opening the doors, adding minor steering adjustments to get on target, setting bomb intervals and dropping the bombs. All while the rest of the gunners maintain defensive fire arcs.
Opening the pause menu mid-mission will let players select any other aircraft in their flight to complete the mission as. However, it will also let them select aircraft from the opposing side. Letting them switch sides mid-mission if desired.
Finally, the mid-mission unit switch also extends to land and sea units. Whether they are 40mm Bofors autocannons at airfields or the 20mm machine guns, 40mm autocannons or deck guns on I-class Destroyers, Flower-class Corvettes or even Kingfisher-class Sloops.
Virtual Reality
Roughly three years ago ISNI Industries was working on a virtual reality version of the game. The VR build can be purchased on Itch.io. However, this build has not been updated to the same level of completion as the desktop version. With the VR build so outdated, I felt as though showing video of it from YouTube would suffice rather than take the effort to download it and try it myself.
The primary reason for this version mismatch is the developer's focus on remaking many of the systems of the game. On April 8th, 2025, a rare devblog from the solo developer says much of the code was made from when they were new to game development and learning while continuing development. After taking much time to rebuild most of the systems with their newer skills, work towards new content for an upcoming update has been underway.
A Curious Future
According to a post in the official Discord server for the game, the developer's road map includes a new 200x200 km procedural map, more props like villages and trees, an optional simplified flight model used by aircraft no engaged in air combat which would improve frame rate in large formations of aircraft scenarios, improved mission editor and much more.
While I do not expect the virtual reality build of the game to match the desktop version anytime soon, it would be interesting to see how the developer expands on the content of the game without leaving the scope of the year 1940. I'm grateful to have a smaller flight sim lite like this still active in 2026.
Connect with 'Sky On Fire: 1940'
About the Writer
Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. [Read Staff Profile]
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