In our first Heroes in the Sky dev diary, HIS Community Manager GM Rico lists some of the plane types you'll find in this World War II dogfighting MMOG and puts these plane types and the "class" roles they fulfill into familiar MMORPG terms.

Heroes in the Sky also explores the more experimental side of World War II research and development, and Rico will also briefly discuss the impetus to bring good-looking prototypes (if abject miliary failures) for some of the plane types you'll find for both the Axis and Allied powers. That and more in Heroes of the Sky Dev Diary #1: Plane Types!

Heroes in the Sky Dev Diary #1 - Plane Types

WWII was an odd time; wars tend to result in very dramatic funding for military industrial complexes which in turn results in some really wild feats of engineering. Had someone asked me about half the content in HIS as it relates to history I’d tell them it didn’t actually exist. But as I’ve been working with this project and looking through various sources I have found, to my continuous surprise that it does!

Each side currently has over 100 aircrafts that were either in service during WWII or were planned to be in service. These aircrafts cover the aerial influence of the United States, Britain, Russia, Germany, Japan, and Italy. While I’ve already seen folks strategizing over numbers and stats, I personally like to take the aircrafts that appeal to me visually the most.

Which has always been the strategy of Ole Rico, it is better to lose while looking fantastic than to win while looking terrible ;). Anywho! Let us move on. These aircrafts, as many fans already know, are collectively grouped into Fighters, Gunners, and Bombers, which are essentially the direct damage, support, and heavy classes. For player versus player matches I suspect that most people will be playing Fighters, which is not unlike the real world, this is not a design flaw but how actual war in this time period would have panned out.

However occupational war and attack vs. defense will be very interesting. Watching players use each plane to its fullest capacity. This is all of course not even mentioning the premium planes players will have access to. That is where it gets really interesting to me.

Different types of planes take on distinct group roles in Heroes in the Sky.

As we’ve been translating the premium planes from Korean (or, on occasion, empty lines) to English I’ve been scouring the internet looking for data on these magnificent feats of engineering. Some of them are highly experimental, of which the only test models resulted in the pilots death (or injury), and others were actually produced but were either too late for the war or just far too costly to enter major service.

Regardless they are all fantastic, pinnacles of a time when funding looked unlimited and the creative minds of engineers were spinning along at a million miles an hour. As I’ve mentioned before, the Kalinin K7 bomber is my absolute favorite plane in the game at the current moment, it was (and frankly still is) and absolutely massive plane that really does feel like a fortress in the sky. From something that massive we have the other side of the spectrum with the supremely small Ohka Japanese Suicide Plane or the German Huckebein Ta-183 taking up the other extreme.

The options may not be endless but they are certainly plentiful with easily no true end in sight. The amount of aircrafts still available is staggering and varied. This on top of the knowledge I’ve already gained has made me very happy. I suspect it’ll make players happy too.