Heroes In the Sky
Intense aerial firefights take center stage in Heroes In the Sky, a World War II themed combat flight simulator built around quick matches and constant action. Whether you prefer chasing enemy fighters through flak-filled skies or helping your team complete objectives against AI squadrons, the game focuses on accessible dogfighting rather than strict simulation realism.
 | Publisher: GameUS, Inc. Playerbase: Low Type: Combat Flight Simulator Release Date: March 3, 2015 Shut Down: March, 2020 Pros: +Quick, action-heavy PvP and PvE matches. +Large roster of iconic WWII aircraft. +Progression and upgrades for your planes. Cons: -Arcade-like physics that can feel off. -Controls can be clumsy at first. -Localization and text quality are uneven. |
Heroes In the Sky Overview
Heroes In the Sky (HIS) is a WWII aerial combat simulator that blends MMO-style progression with match-based dogfights. The pace is brisk in both PvE and PvP, pushing you to manage positioning, aim, and survival rather than long pre-fight setup. Battles can scale up to 35 players, and the game offers a massive hangar of more than five hundred aircraft to collect and tune through its upgrade systems. For players who like structured content, there are over 200 scenarios that function as bite-sized challenges and learning tools. Co-op missions are also a major pillar, letting you fly alongside friends and coordinate roles. For those with the right hardware, joystick support is included to make the controls feel closer to a traditional flight setup. Heroes in the Sky shut down in March 2020.
Heroes In the Sky Key Features:
- Build Out Your Hangar – pick from 500+ planes and improve performance via the item-based upgrade system.
- Team-Based Co-Op – run missions with as many as eight friends in cooperative play.
- Scenario Content – work through 200+ scenarios that help sharpen dogfighting fundamentals and objective play.
- Joystick Support – play with a supported joystick for a more authentic flight-control feel.
- Large-Scale PvP – join occupation wars featuring battles with up to 35 players fighting for territory.
Heroes In the Sky Screenshots
Heroes In the Sky Featured Video
Heroes In the Sky Review
Heroes in the Sky (often shortened to HiS) is a 3D World War II dogfighting MMO with light RPG progression layered on top of its combat. The title is associated with GamesCampus, and its open beta began on July 1, 2010. In the relatively small niche of online aerial combat MMOs, it sits alongside games like Ace Online and World of Warplanes. Structurally, Heroes in the Sky leans into a lobby-based format for its missions and PvP, while Ace Online is better known for a persistent-world approach. If you are specifically looking for quick matchmaking, repeatable sorties, and arcade-forward dogfights, HiS delivered a distinct option during its run.
Choosing a Side in the War
After logging in for the first time, the game offers a short tutorial. It is optional, but it is brief and provides a small reward in starting gems (the in-game currency), which makes it a practical first step even for genre veterans. From there, the first major decision is allegiance: Axis or Allies. The Axis roster is framed around Germany, Japan, and Italy, while the Allies include the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union. Each of the six nations has its own aircraft lineup, and across them you get a substantial pool of 70+ flyable planes, each designed with distinct strengths and tradeoffs. Once enlisted, you will spend a lot of time in the base area, particularly the bar and the operational base, where quests are picked up before queuing into missions or heading to PvP.
Match Lobbies and Game Modes
Heroes in the Sky is built around lobbies, so you are rarely far from the action. Once you select a mode, you are quickly in the air shooting, maneuvering, and trying to stay alive long enough to finish the objective. The game revolves around three main activity types. First are Missions, cooperative sorties for up to four teammates. Many of these missions are themed around World War II events and are faction-restricted, meaning Axis players run their own set and Allies run theirs. In practice, these sorties often involve waves of AI aircraft and a sequence of objectives that punish reckless flying. The no-respawn rule is a defining trait, if you go down early, you are waiting for the outcome, so careful positioning and target selection matter. A large portion of quests can be completed through these PvE missions, and the mission catalog provides more variety than many players expect at first glance.
The second mode, Attack and Defend, puts Axis and Allies directly against each other across multi-stage battles inspired by recognizable conflicts, including Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Bardia. Compared to standard sorties, this mode feels more like a structured PvP campaign with momentum shifting between stages.
The third mode is Occupational War, a scheduled event that runs for a few hours each day. It frames the conflict as a struggle for control of Europe, with each side aiming to hold as many regions as possible. When a city becomes contested, players can join that fight, and the larger player count makes these clashes noticeably more chaotic and intense than typical matches. These battles can reach roughly 40 participants in a single engagement, which is where HiS most clearly sells the fantasy of a busy, contested sky.
How It Feels to Fly and Fight
Moment to moment, Heroes in the Sky is surprisingly smooth for its era. The controls respond quickly, and the combat loop encourages constant movement, lining up shots, breaking pursuit, and trying to create angles rather than simply trading damage. For new players, PvE co-op missions are the sensible entry point, because jumping into PvP or Occupational War too early can be rough. Higher-level pilots tend to have stronger planes and more tools unlocked, and the skill gap becomes obvious in competitive lobbies.
Combat is largely skill-driven, with success coming from reading enemy movement, controlling your speed and turning, and choosing when to commit to a chase. The weapons mix includes machine guns and missiles, and missiles can feel stronger in raw impact, balanced somewhat by the added challenge of landing them consistently. One notable drawback is the lack of graphics options. The game runs at a fixed 800×600 resolution with no ability to change it, which is a significant limitation even by older MMO standards.
Depth Through Planes, Skills, and Upgrades
HiS is at its best when you engage with its breadth. Between the plane roster, multiple skill trees, and a wide selection of items and weapons, there is a genuine sense of long-term build planning. New aircraft are produced (unlocked) through the factory using tech points. Because you only earn two tech points per level, progression rewards focus, investing across multiple nations can slow your ability to reach advanced aircraft, since higher-tier planes require unlocking earlier steps in that nation’s chain.
Character growth also comes through skill points, earned each level and spent across four trees: Common, Fighter, Bomber, and Gunner. This system gives players room to specialize based on preferred aircraft roles and combat style, whether you want general utility, more fighter-centric dueling tools, bomber-focused options, or gunner-oriented boosts. Taken together, the systems make Heroes in the Sky feel more customizable than many players initially assume from its straightforward match structure.
Final Verdict – Good
Heroes in the Sky stood out by delivering fast, match-based MMO dogfighting with meaningful progression and a strong sense of variety. Its weaker points were hard to ignore, including inconsistent English text, awkward moments in control feel, and limited technical settings. Still, for players who wanted an accessible aerial combat MMO with lots of planes and a steady stream of missions, HiS offered a niche experience that was difficult to replace.
Heroes In the Sky Links
Heroes In the Sky Steam Page
Heroes In the Sky Official Site
Heroes In the Sky Wikipedia
Heroes In the Sky Wikia
Heroes In the Sky Facebook Page
Heroes In the Sky System Requirements
Minimum Requirements:
Operating System: Windows XP
CPU: Intel Pentium4 2.4, AMD 2500+
Video Card: Geforce FX5600 or ATI Radeon 9600
RAM: 1 GB
Hard Disk Space: 1.5 GB
Recommended Requirements:
Operating System: Windows 7 or 8
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or AMD 3200+
Video Card: GeForce 6600 GT or ATI Radeon x700
RAM: 2 GB
Hard Disk Space: 1.5 GB
Heroes In the Sky Music & Soundtrack
Coming Soon…
Heroes In the Sky Additional Information
Developer: GameUS, Inc.
Current Publisher: JCPLanet (Global)
Past Publishers: GameUS, Inc. (US); Gamigo (EU); onNet (Korea)
Languages: English, French, German, Korean, Japanese
Alpha Release Date: December 2008 (Japan); July 2009 (Korea); December 2009 (Germany)
Beta Release Date: June 10, 2010 to June 24, 2010
Release Date: September 15, 2010
Steam Release Date: March 3, 2015
Shut Down: March, 2020
Development History / Background:
Heroes In the Sky (HIS) is a combat flight MMO developed by GameUS, Inc. Its earliest public testing began with an alpha release in Japan in December 2008, followed by additional early releases in Korea (July 2009) and Germany (December 2009). The game then ran a short beta window in 2010 before reaching full release on September 15, 2010. From February 2015 onward, JCPlanet operated a global server for HIS, while Valve’s Steam platform also hosted a US server through GameUS, Inc. starting on March 3, 2015.