SimplePlanes 2: Open World Collecting

An Encouragement for Free Form Fun I think I get it now. Almost one decade ago, when the first SimplePlanes game came out in 2014, I never spent enough time on it to fully get "the vibe". My mindset towards flight games and simulators was certainly different. A game that has constructing vehicles from scratch being a large part of its identity did not interest me deeply back then. Not the prospect of designing an original aircraft either. These days my time with SimplePlanes 2 by Jundroo has illuminated me to its entire concept. It's all vibes, casual fun times, freely flying and driving and apparently even collectables. Though we're not talking trading cards or game achievement trophies. We're collecting aircraft. Official release trailer. Something I say frequently about flight games is that even in all of that freedom there has to be "something to do" after a few flights of wandering around aimlessly. For me, that task in SimplePlanes 2 is trying to find hidden vehicles. Specifically aircraft in my case, but this game has land and sea vehicles as well. I cannot say that I have ever delved extremely deep into aircraft builders like SimplePlanes 1, Juno: New Origins or Flyout. Or at least not deeply enough for me to truly say that I understand them in such detail I could design an efficient original aircraft design. I can slap something together, sure, but it is not going to be correct, you know? There is a difference. So, I rely on either the selection of base game aircraft or the workshop full of aircraft created by people across the world. Fortunately for me the developer made one of the most impactful decisions for SimplePlanes 2 by maintaining compatibility with the 1 million+ user made vehicle catalog from SimplePlanes 1. There is no guarantee that all of them will work correctly in the current game, but it's an amazing gesture towards preserving a decade's worth of player designs. And yet there are apparently still more hidden base game vehicles to be found... Sightseeing flight leading into an unexpected adventure. The undeniable strength of an open world sandbox is that you can pretty much do whatever you want with any of the vehicles and terrain you see. Thus far SimplePlanes 2 gives us 787 square kilometers of terrain and 330 kilometers of roads to wander freely. Sure, SimplePlanes 1 has more terrain, but SimplePlanes 2 is still in early access, and its roadmap mentions adding more terrain in the future, but I digress. In both offline singleplayer and online multiplayer, there are 44 hidden vehicles that can be unlocked by finding their blueprints. This is something that is mentioned on the game's store page but not explained in detail. These blueprints are scattered around all over the place in rather sneaky locations. For example, I started a flight with a simple, light General Aviation aircraft to fly slow and really take in the scenery. I stumbled into my first one near a set of Precision Approach Path Indicator lights at a regional airport. A highly unusual sound I heard while passing by its general area piqued my interest. I returned to the area as this odd noise changed tone the closer I got to its source. I clicked a stack of blueprints laying on the ground and the next thing I knew I had a new aircraft that looks similar to a Cessna 421B Golden Eagle in my vehicle inventory. Finding and flying the "Grand Camel" This led to me flying to the next airport to wander its facilities and find three more aircraft blueprints. All of them in places you would not expect them. Next to a wall beneath an air traffic control tower, near an office inside of a hangar and beneath the support beam of an aircraft terminal. An unplanned rapid descent to landing in a ship dock later (I stalled an aircraft while performing aerobatics and crashed into a container crane), I found a blueprint for a forklift. Examples of blueprints. There is a lot of terrain to explore. Assuming these blueprints are truly spread all over the place, not just in populated areas, it will take some time to find them all. That is flying to new airports, driving through towns, wandering foothills, landing on mountains. Not something you will be able to do in a single casual session. I have officially been "bitten by the bug" and know that the next SimplePlanes 2 session I organize with friends will partially be focused on flying to as many locations as possible, searching for even more unlockable aircraft. Now, I could just share the aircraft designs directly with them using the game's easy to use feature that lets player copy each other's vehicles, but where is the fun in that? Instead, I will brush up on my rotary wing skills so I can search more effectively from the air too. Connect with SimplePlanes 2 Steam Website X.com About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza 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]