Project Wingman |OT| Aces in Combat [Now on Xbox/Win 10 + Game Pass]

[Dancrane212]

Platform(s): PC, Xbox
Release Date:

PC: December 1st, 2020​

Xbox: October 28th, 2021​

Genre: Air Combat
Price: $24.99
Player(s): 1
Format: Digital
Developer: Sector D2
Publisher: Sector D2, Humble Games
Size: ~16GB

What is Project Wingman?

Project Wingman is a flight action game that lets you take the seat of advanced fighter jets and become a true ace. Fight in various missions and gamemodes ranging from intense aerial dogfights to large scale ground assault in an alternate scorched earth setting.

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Is there a campaign?
Yes, there is a narrative-driven campaign where you progress through a set of linear missions, gaining new planes and hardware as you progress.

Conquest mode?
A rougelite mode separate from the campaign of Project Wingman. Here you are presented with a word map that you must take control of. Pick an area of the map, take on missions and eventually take down a boss to rid the area of enemy aircraft. You can acquire new hardware and allies as you progress, but enemies will escalate their attacks overtime. Your run will end once you are shot down.

How many planes are in the game?
20 (with the potential for more to be added post-release).

Camera options?
You can play in first or third person (with the former having an optional cockpit display).

Is Project Wingman a simulator?
No, while there are factors such as stalling your plane the game is more of an action "arcade" experience. Project Wingman also takes place in an alternate universe where great airships patrol the skies and severe volcanic activity have altered the planet's geography.

VR support?
Yes, VR is supported throughout the game on PC but is not required.

Ultrawide support?
Yes.

Flight Stick (HOTAS) support?
Yes on PC, TBA on console.

What time is the game taking off on PC?
10am PST.

Xbox Play Anywhere?
Yes, buying the game on Xbox will get you the game on Windows 10 and vice versa.

Game Pass?
Yes, the game is part of Game Pass on PC and Xbox. If you are an active member of that service you can play Project Wingman for no extra cost.

Console ports?
An Xbox port was unceremoniously announced on August 10th 2021 and then had a surprise release on October 28th of the same year. Other console plans are unknown at the time.

Metacritic | Opencritic

Screenrant 3.5/5

Project Wingman is a decent attempt from Sector D2 and Humble Games to compete with the Ace Combat franchise. With impressive graphics and relatively smooth gameplay, Project Wingman gives air combat fans something much more fun than frustrating. However, lack of innovation, quiet audio and a somewhat wonky UI means it's a game that will likely only be enjoyed by those who already consider themselves fans of the genre.

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NoisyPixel 8/10

Project Wingman is an amazing air combat adventure from a team of developers who truly love the genre. Its campaign is fairly predictable, and you may wish for more planes, but the gameplay is just too damn good to overlook. There's a noticeable layer of quality found in each mission that transcends into the Conquest Mode, which will keep you coming back for more.

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SavingContent 4/5

Project Wingman features the best Ace Combat has to offer, and more. Sector D2 has crafted a game that's both original and an homage in one, and I'm here for it. The singleplayer is incredibly well thought out, and provides longevity in its conquest mode where most players would stop when the campaign ends. Project Wingman knows what it is, does what it sets out to do, and exceeds that of its contemporaries.

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Review Thread

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[@TheFriendlyBro]

Can't wait to play this.

Really hope it does well, there's room for more than just Ace Combat.

 

[SharpX68K]

SOON

 

[marcbret87]

Looks very good!

 

[Dancrane212]

Longer look at gameplay from the intro to Project Wingman:

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[TerremotoDePorta]

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!

35 minutes to takeoff!

 

[Klyka]

That literally looks like Ace Combat lol
If you showed me gameplay of this without context I would immediately say it's Ace Combat.

 

[Dancrane212]

Now out!

 

[tobascodagama]

It's kind of like how Dauntless started because people really wanted a Monster Hunter game on PC after a decade of never getting PC releases and then MH:W was announced and came out while Dauntless was still in beta.

But there's definitely room for both the AAA and indie takes on the same concept, IMO, both with Dauntless and with Project Wingman.

Anyway, if anyone has a TrackIR/FaceTrackNOIR setup, I'm curious whether this game detects it without needing to use vjoy or Joystick Gremlin or whatever.

 

[flyinj]

My god is the VR horribly implemented in this game.

There are so many things that render differently in each eye- clouds, lighting, explosion FX. This causes huge eye strain and stereo fighting problems.

It is so bad I'm wondering if it can even be fixed without a major overhaul to how the game renders everything.

This thing was definitely not made with VR in mind.

 

[Phionoxx]

My god is the VR horribly implemented in this game.

There are so many things that render differently in each eye- clouds, lighting, explosion FX. This causes huge eye strain and stereo fighting problems.

It is so bad I'm wondering if it can even be fixed without a major overhaul to how the game renders everything.

This thing was definitely not made with VR in mind.

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That's disappointing to hear but thanks for sharing your impressions. Really enjoyed Ace Combat 7 but no PCVR support there.

 

[flyinj]

There are also all sorts of UI elements that render "behind" the cockpit, but are not blocked by it, so there is a ton of stereo fighting with those aspects as well.

Like the HUD is larger than the area the HUD is supposed to be in the cockpit.

 

[1-D_FE]

My god is the VR horribly implemented in this game.

There are so many things that render differently in each eye- clouds, lighting, explosion FX. This causes huge eye strain and stereo fighting problems.

It is so bad I'm wondering if it can even be fixed without a major overhaul to how the game renders everything.

This thing was definitely not made with VR in mind.

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Well that sucks to hear. Interest suddenly plummeted.

I remember there was an alpha demo of this released years ago. And while it supposedly supported VR even back then, there was no playable demo with VR in it. It defies logic that rendering could be so broken for a game that supposedly had VR support for years.

EDIT: Jesus. Hopefully this is just some weird quirk that can quickly be addressed. Because I don't want to consider the alternative: that VR support was a sham marketing line to help get the title buzz during the Kickstarter campaign.

 

[flyinj]

Well that sucks to hear. Interest suddenly plummeted.

I remember there was an alpha demo of this released years ago. And while it supposedly supported VR even back then, there was no playable demo with VR in it. It defies logic that rendering could be so broken for a game that supposedly had VR support for years.

EDIT: Jesus. Hopefully this is just some weird quirk that can quickly be addressed. Because I don't want to consider the alternative: that VR support was a sham marketing line to help get the title buzz during the Kickstarter campaign.

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I don't think its a sham. It's that the developer doesn't understand how to develop for VR.

 

[1-D_FE]

I don't think its a sham. It's that the developer doesn't understand how to develop for VR.

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A lot of the rendering stuff sounds like stuff that you'd see in 3D Vision games and would require user patches to fix the shaders and stuff.



The thing that I don't get, is this was a video that was released almost 2 years ago. If you're actually playing in VR, that's not the stuff that would have escaped your attention. It just seems unbelievable to me. Especially since it's not even a proprietary engine. How could this stuff happen in an UE4 game if you actually had an HMD to test your output.

 

[flyinj]

A lot of the rendering stuff sounds like stuff that you'd see in 3D Vision games and would require user patches to fix the shaders and stuff.



The thing that I don't get, is this was a video that was released almost 2 years ago. If you're actually playing in VR, that's not the stuff that would have escaped your attention. It just seems unbelievable to me. Especially since it's not even a proprietary engine. How could this stuff happen in an UE4 game if you actually had an HMD to test your output.

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Yeah, in UE4 it is well known that you need to create FX a different way to have them render correctly in VR. The developer probably doesn't know this or what needs to be done differently.

They probably just saw it working in VR and disregarded all the stereo fighting issues thinking they weren't that big of a deal

 

[I KILL PXLS]

There are also all sorts of UI elements that render "behind" the cockpit, but are not blocked by it, so there is a ton of stereo fighting with those aspects as well.

Like the HUD is larger than the area the HUD is supposed to be in the cockpit.

Click to shrink...

Nooo! That's one of the things that kills No Man Sky for me in VR. Definitely going to wait and see if they fix some of that before I pick it up. So disappointed :(

 

[Zephy]

Real shame about the VR implementation, I was going to get the game solely for this. Hopefully it will be fixed, I will wait.

 

[Mullet2000]

Oof. Immediately bought the game, came here, and now have submitted a refund over that VR stuff. Brutal.

 

[KDR_11k]

Hm, yeah, like most of these games normal difficulty is fairly easy but the game warns that there are no checkpoints and the missions feel fairly lengthy so I'm wary of increasing the difficulty...

 

[tobascodagama]

I don't think its a sham. It's that the developer doesn't understand how to develop for VR.

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Yeah, it's like a three-person studio as well, and only one of those people is actually a programmer, so I'm not really surprised. Sucks to promise it and not have it actually work properly, though.

 

[The Stealth Fox]

Was looking forward to this, so bummed about VR. Still thinking about getting it since it's more ace combat but I really was hoping VR would work as it should given that it was heavily advertised.


Are the VR issues fixable or will the game have to be redone from the ground up?

I feel kind of betrayed since they kept advertising VR.

 

[tobascodagama]

Hm, the missions definitely do feel a little too long, but the dogfighting is definitely fun, which is the main thing. The story could stand to be a little more over-the-top, but maybe it ramps up. I'm enjoying this so far!

 

[BlueStarEXSF]

Shame about the VR stuff. How is the music ?

 

[Deleted member 4212]

Looks really pretty

 

[Dancrane212]

Soundtrack is now up on bandcamp:

 

[KDR_11k]

Man, Mission 7 drives home that this, just like AC7, definitely needs some artificial horizon for its in-cloud flying. The cloud cover in that mission is so low that if you exit it out the bottom and have too steep of an angle you cannot turn quickly enough to avoid crashing into the ground and since there doesn't seem to be any instrument telling you which way you're pointed vertically (for horizontal there's the radar and compass but neither of them shows your angle to the horizontal plane) so all you can do is watch the altimeter and try to tell how quickly it's changing while the whole HUD rattles like crazy.

 

[The Stealth Fox]

So put me in the camp of this is great...in pancake mode.

VR has it's issues but it's enjoyable enough. The feel of being able to look around and follow targets by looking around in the cockpit is amazing. It's definitely better having it than not having it . FlyinJs complaints are real but if they patch the clouds and the HUD up it could be the definitive VR flying experience that's accessible to everyone. I'm able to work through the issues but some of you may not.


25 dollars for this amount of content is great though.

 

[tobascodagama]

Yeah, headtracking is a game-changer. I wish this supported TrackIR/OpenTrack. Maybe the fake-VR workaround for Star Wars Squadrons also works here?

 

[flyinj]

VR has it's issues but it's enjoyable enough. The feel of being able to look around and follow targets by looking around in the cockpit is amazing. It's definitely better having it than not having it . FlyinJs complaints are real but if they patch the clouds and the HUD up it could be the definitive VR flying experience that's accessible to everyone. I'm able to work through the issues but some of you may not.


25 dollars for this amount of content is great though.

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It's not just the clouds and HUD that are broken in VR.

The reflections on the cockpit, the shading on the ground, smoke particles and explosions all render differently in each eye.

Then there is the issue of the objective marker and all subtitles rendering through the cockpit causing stereo fighting issues.

There is a LOT of work the dev needs to do to fix the VR mode.

Someone was chatting with the dev about it in the discord, so the dev is at least aware of the issues. However, the dev said they had a Rift S and they didn't notice the issues except for smoke sometimes sorting wrong. Which doesn't give me a lot of confidence that the dev will even fix the issues if they think it looks ok in its current state.

 

[The Stealth Fox]

It's not just the clouds and HUD that are broken in VR.

The reflections on the cockpit, the shading on the ground, smoke particles and explosions all render differently in each eye.

Then there is the issue of the objective marker and all subtitles rendering through the cockpit causing stereo fighting issues.

There is a LOT of work the dev needs to do to fix the VR mode.

Someone was chatting with the dev about it in the discord, so the dev is at least aware of the issues. However, the dev said they had a Rift S and they didn't notice the issues except for smoke sometimes sorting wrong. Which doesn't give me a lot of confidence that the dev will even fix the issues if they think it looks ok in its current state.

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You're probably right. The HUD issues and the clouds looking different and clipping through the mountains stuck out like a sore thumb to me immediately. That sucks that they're pretty much in denial about what the actual underlying issue is... which is a real bummer

 

[tobascodagama]

Backer e-mail just went out, the jist is that stuff like the VR performance problems and some HOTAS configuration issues are their top priority for post-launch support.

 

[The Stealth Fox]

Backer e-mail just went out, the jist is that stuff like the VR performance problems and some HOTAS configuration issues are their top priority for post-launch support.

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Well I actually decided to refund because I could feel a headache coming on after about 30-40 minutes of play (once the honeymoon of "oh wow I'm in a cockpit" wore off). Once fixed, I'm back in. Otherwise, I'll just play a little AC7 to get my arcade flying fix.

 

[TouchOfGray]

Was enjoying this quite a bit until I got to mission 9. A massive air battles where you see the AI blatantly and constantly cheat. Honestly it killed the entire game for me.

 

[Deleted member 9290]

i played it for an hour in VR and at least for me it works great. Loving it so far in VR.

But the performance needs to be optimized. i need to play on 50% resolution scaling with my RTX 3080 to get stable 72fps for my Quest.

 

[Nezacant]

Tried this game last night using a Valve Index and a Thrustmaster HOTAS. It was a pretty great experience! Any game in a cockpit needs to include support for VR headsets. They are a match made in heaven.

 

[Slackerchan]

Sorry for the bump but I wasn't sure this warranted a whole new thread. I thought people who enjoyed Project Wingman might want to know that the composer, Jose Pavli, will be launching a Kickstarter soon for a project called Dawn. It'll be an animated audioplay written by PW's writer. It doesn't look to be a PW tie-in but based on the teaser it sounds like it will be entertaining.

 

[Dancrane212]

Launching into Game Pass on the 29th:

 

[Dancrane212]

Looks like the game is coming to Xbox?

Xbox Welcomes Developers Making Their First Console Game - Xbox Wire

Today, we showcased a bunch of great developers during our second /twitchgaming Showcase featuring ID@Xbox. As a marketing manager for ID@Xbox, I get a small glimpse into the hard work that goes into game development and no two experiences are alike. From single dev projects to multiple studio...

news.xbox.com

 

[Cels]

checked this out from game pass and beat it today. it's pretty sick and unbelievable in quality for a literal small indie game

 

[The Stealth Fox]

So this was 10 dollars on cdkeys so I picked it up again (after refunding the first time).... And VR gave me a headache because of all the rendering problems. But it's a great Indie Ace Combat game in pancake mode. So this time I'll hang onto it for the price I paid.

Still remarkable that a 3 person team did it

 

[Dancrane212]

Now live on Xbox:

Buy Project Wingman | Xbox

Project Wingman is a combat flight action game with an emphasis on polished and refined gameplay, true-to-its-roots inspirations, and an engaging single player experience. Perfect for those who aren't looking for a simulator experience, with the ease of pick up and play, all the way to those who...

www.xbox.com

 

[Banderdash]

Now live on Xbox:

Buy Project Wingman | Xbox

Project Wingman is a combat flight action game with an emphasis on polished and refined gameplay, true-to-its-roots inspirations, and an engaging single player experience. Perfect for those who aren't looking for a simulator experience, with the ease of pick up and play, all the way to those who...

www.xbox.com

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Outstanding!

 

[Dancrane212]

Friend sent this over from his Series S, the game goes all out with its visual settings options:

 

[Patitoloco]

Friend sent this over from his Series S, the game goes all out with its visual settings options:

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Mmm I'm impressed, but feels like someone forgot to toggle off the graphics settings of the PC version in the Xbox version honestly lol

I hope it stays though, it can be a very fun experiment in a console game!

 

[Dancrane212]

Mmm I'm impressed, but feels like someone forgot to toggle off the graphics settings of the PC version in the Xbox version honestly lol

I hope it stays though, it can be a very fun experiment in a console game!

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It could be a neat little benchmarking tool between the various platforms.

 

[valentine71]

Is this arcade or a bit like sim or very sim? Lol, i want to check it out but would love to know how it plays.

 

[ty_hot]

No Xbox Streaming apparently, right?

 

[flyinj]

Mmm I'm impressed, but feels like someone forgot to toggle off the graphics settings of the PC version in the Xbox version honestly lol

I hope it stays though, it can be a very fun experiment in a console game!

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Yeah that's exactly what happened.

Crazy that this got through MS Certification.

 

[Patitoloco]

Is this arcade or a bit like sim or very sim? Lol, i want to check it out but would love to know how it plays.

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It's very much Ace Combat, more actiony than simulation oriented.