Dash through beautiful clouds at blazing speeds in unspeakable well designed jets or just enjoy bombing stuff from as low as a few hundred feet, to dozens of miles.

This game is honestly for everyone who is into military planes and air warfare. Being a mediocre sim enthusiast like me or a hardcore simulator person with control setups for multiple thousands of dollars.


-Graphics-
Great graphics, performance can be great but also abysmal, depending on your setup and settings ofc. For me, with a pretty good rig, you will get a good amount of fps, probably in the low 100s with top to high end hardware from the last few years. Having a newer rig with todays excellent to high end hardware can obviously only help. That said, turning on some resource heavy settings, especially on medium end rigs will get your fps very low. VERY. LOW. Also i recommend atleast 32gb ram.

Also do not expect ground stuff to be detailed. This is a flight sim after all. And while all the calculations and rendering for ground vehicles, obstacles and traffic does work well, it is not the beauty side of this sim. But it is not bad either. Just practical.


-Content-
There are planes for everyone. F2p planes are good, and the Su-25T is a great starter module to learn the ropes. But definetely get the high fidelity models if you like the game and have enough buttons. They are well worth the price.

There is a lot stuff to do, there are many mission for free and in the form of dlc, you can just sim around, bomb stuff, go BVR, go dogfighting, there is more than enough air-to-ground stuff and all the other stuff i did not even try yet. It is a very capable and complete sim in terms of combat. Not to speak of the models and their details.

My 2 cents on starter planes, F16, JF-17 and probably the A-10, even tho you need to learn alot, memorize a lot and need a lot buttons and heads to bind for the Hog.

I'd personally not recommend the F18 to everyone as starter. While it probably is one of the easiest planes, and a lot of fun, it tends to teach some bad habits that can impaire you later on. (I still got it first and did not regret)

After that, for the fun rating, i would go with the Harrier, as it brings new stuff to master. And F14/Mirage are also honorable mentions.


-Sound-
Not much to say. Simply amazing, probably the best sound i ever witnessed in terms of flight simulation.


-Generel concerns-
It is a simulator after all, so do not expect arcade flying. Yes there is an arcade-ish mode, yes there are low fidelity planes, no it does not play like Ace Combat or HAWX. And no there are no battlefield UFOs in DCS either. Stay away, for your own good, if you do not want to learn stuff and bring a lot of patience and time to practice.

Ofcourse i have to speak about the controls. While there are people who can perfectly play this game, way better than i ever will, with controllers or even KB+M, i just can not recommend playing this on anything else than a few hundred dollar hotas. It is a worthy investment if you are into fligh sims, and almost a requirement for dcs.

Since vehicle sims in generel, especially flight sims tend to have a lot of axes bound for fine movement and you mostly have to do a lot of stuff simultaneously, moving your "head" ingame can be atrocious without head tracking. Even tho i really do not like most head tracking solutions and VR being very ugly, i still use track hat and i recommend track ir or a very good VR device for DCS.


-Conclusion-
Download and never uninstall.

...and im serious on that. I literally could not reinstall because some weird errors with steam download. Had to ask a friend to help me out. Never ever uninstall.

Dash through beautiful clouds at blazing speeds in unspeakable well designed jets or just enjoy bombing stuff from as low as a few hundred feet, to dozens of miles. This game is honestly for everyone who is into military planes and air warfare. Being a mediocre sim enthusiast like me or a hardcore simulator person with control setups for multiple thousands of dollars. -Graphics- Great graphics, performance can be great but also abysmal, depending on your setup and settings ofc. For me, with a pretty good rig, you will get a good amount of fps, probably in the low 100s with top to high end hardware from the last few years. Having a newer rig with todays excellent to high end hardware can obviously only help. That said, turning on some resource heavy settings, especially on medium end rigs will get your fps very low. VERY. LOW. Also i recommend atleast 32gb ram. Also do not expect ground stuff to be detailed. This is a flight sim after all. And while all the calculations and rendering for ground vehicles, obstacles and traffic does work well, it is not the beauty side of this sim. But it is not bad either. Just practical. -Content- There are planes for everyone. F2p planes are good, and the Su-25T is a great starter module to learn the ropes. But definetely get the high fidelity models if you like the game and have enough buttons. They are well worth the price. There is a lot stuff to do, there are many mission for free and in the form of dlc, you can just sim around, bomb stuff, go BVR, go dogfighting, there is more than enough air-to-ground stuff and all the other stuff i did not even try yet. It is a very capable and complete sim in terms of combat. Not to speak of the models and their details. My 2 cents on starter planes, F16, JF-17 and probably the A-10, even tho you need to learn alot, memorize a lot and need a lot buttons and heads to bind for the Hog. I'd personally not recommend the F18 to everyone as starter. While it probably is one of the easiest planes, and a lot of fun, it tends to teach some bad habits that can impaire you later on. (I still got it first and did not regret) After that, for the fun rating, i would go with the Harrier, as it brings new stuff to master. And F14/Mirage are also honorable mentions. -Sound- Not much to say. Simply amazing, probably the best sound i ever witnessed in terms of flight simulation. -Generel concerns- It is a simulator after all, so do not expect arcade flying. Yes there is an arcade-ish mode, yes there are low fidelity planes, no it does not play like Ace Combat or HAWX. And no there are no battlefield UFOs in DCS either. Stay away, for your own good, if you do not want to learn stuff and bring a lot of patience and time to practice. Ofcourse i have to speak about the controls. While there are people who can perfectly play this game, way better than i ever will, with controllers or even KB+M, i just can not recommend playing this on anything else than a few hundred dollar hotas. It is a worthy investment if you are into fligh sims, and almost a requirement for dcs. Since vehicle sims in generel, especially flight sims tend to have a lot of axes bound for fine movement and you mostly have to do a lot of stuff simultaneously, moving your "head" ingame can be atrocious without head tracking. Even tho i really do not like most head tracking solutions and VR being very ugly, i still use track hat and i recommend track ir or a very good VR device for DCS. -Conclusion- Download and never uninstall. ...and im serious on that. I literally could not reinstall because some weird errors with steam download. Had to ask a friend to help me out. Never ever uninstall.