Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: Heliborne, JetCat games, Klabater, PAX East 2017

If You've Ever Thought: Man This Would Be Cooler If It Were A Helicopter Battle, Heliborne Is For You

Published Sun, 26 Mar 2017 10:45:35 -0500

Okay, so there's an admittedly small market for this game, but JetCat Games and Klabater think there are enough people who want to get into helicopter-based combat shenanigans that they've launched Heliborne. And it is literally just a vehicle for you to blow up as many things as you can from the comfort of your sweet combat helicopter.

Yeah, it's Ace Combat but with helicopters. I don't even know what audience there is for this, but they've got to be out there. Anyone sitting around playing Game of Tanks thinking, "man I really wish this was Game of Helicopters"? Probably.

Still, Heliborne is here. It'll give you a nice crash-course on rotary-wing aviation and combat while letting you fly a over 40 "legendary" choppers from the '50s up to 2003. You've got a nice wide range of maps and mission variety to keep you entertained while flying the least cool looking vehicle capable of flight. There are three classes of helicopters: scout class which are small, fast, and may or may not carry a small troop of soldiers; attack class which carry no troops but are dedicated to air-to-air or air-to-ground combat; and finally air assault helicopters which carry a mixture of troops and weapons which allow you to fill multiple roles in combat.

You'll be working with ground forces to fortify positions and create supply-lines with a "zone" capture system. Troops carried by certain 'copter classes must be deployed at a landing zone, and once they fortify the zone, you may have to defend it until reinforcements arrive.

So, capture the flag with helicopters.

There are competitive and co-op multiplayer modes as well as a single-player one so no matter who you are or who your friends are, you can join in on the fun. The "Skirmish" game mode is exactly capture the flag mechanics. "Frontline" requires players to capture bases, while ground vehicles spawn in convoys to roam around and fortify bases.

Additional features are as follows:

Over 100 possible payload variants
Historical co-op missions
6 open maps, including the Gulf of Tonkin (Vietnam), Operation Nguyen Hue (Vietnam), and
Badakhshan Province (Afghanistan)
3 gameplay modes: single player, co-op, and competitive multiplayer for up to 32 players
Test your skills in the historical missions, and in the open sandbox maps
Play your way: fully supports gamepads, flight sticks, and keyboard & mouse

Heliborne will release early this summer for PC. You can check it out in more detail here, or sit back and watch the trailer below.

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