Rowan's Battle of Britain, sometimes known simply as Battle of Britain,[1][2] is a World War II era combat flight simulation game set during the Battle of Britain in 1940.
Rowan's Battle of Britain | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Rowan Software |
Publisher(s) | Empire Interactive |
Platform(s) | Windows |
Release | |
Genre(s) | Combat flight simulator |
Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer |
The combat flight simulation has both RAF and opposing Luftwaffe forces featuring over 800 square miles (2,100 km2) of sky and hundreds of aircraft.
Aggregator | Score |
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Metacritic | 79/100[3] |
Publication | Score |
---|---|
AllGame | [4] |
Computer Games Strategy Plus | [5] |
Computer Gaming World | [6] |
Eurogamer | 7/10[2] |
GameSpot | 8.4/10[7] |
GameStar | 73%[8] |
GameZone | 6.5/10[9] |
IGN | 7.7/10[10] |
Next Generation | [1] |
PC Gamer (US) | 80%[11] |
The game received "generally favourable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.[3] Samuel Bass of NextGen said of the game, "Detailed, beautiful, and polished to the nth degree, this is the WWII sim we've all been wating for."[1]
The game was remade twice, first in 2005 as Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory by Shockwave Productions, Inc.,[12][13] and again in 2007 as Air Battles: Sky Defender by Wild Hare Entertainment, a modified version of the above game with a more arcade-style gameplay.[14]
On end-of-support of the game, the source code of the game was released by Rowan Software under the "Empire Interactive License" in 2001.[15] Following the source code release a group from the game's community[16] took up the support and produced several unofficial patches until 2005.[17][18]
Bob Mitchell: What has prompted you to release the source code for MiG Alley and Battle of Britain? Dave Whiteside: Because we are no longer doing flight sims [after Empire took us over at the end of 2001], and we would not be able to publish any patches that were required [no money was allocated to this], rather than let MiG die and all the code sit doing nothing it was considered a good idea, a swan song, if you like, for Rowan [after 13 years in the flight sim market].