Helicopters are widely considered to "have come of age” during the Vietnam conflict. Over the following decades, they have become integral to the military's very way of life. Heliborne seeks to showcase rotary wing aviation as it’s evolved over five decades of conflict, support, and development.
Heliborne offers 6 major maps inspired by the largest military conflicts in the history of mankind and their locations until the 2000s:
- Operation Nguyen Hue in Vietnam
- Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam
- Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan
- Khost Region in Afghanistan
- Kosovo
- Binomo Islands
- Training ground - in addition to the maps, pilots can make test flights on a training polygon map, before getting into the real battles.
The multiplayer offers two principal game modes: Domination and Frontline.
The Domination mode offers standard capture-the-flag gameplay. It is active on maps Badakhshan and Gulf of Tonkin.
In Frontline mode, the bases are captured by players, and ground vehicles spawn in convoys and move across the map to fortify bases and positions.
This mode is active on maps: Operation Nguyen Hue, Khost Region, and Kosovo.
The solo and co-op Sandbox missions offer procedurally generated tasks based on the Frontline mode.
The load-outs for each in-game helicopter are based entirely on historically accurate weapons systems employed in the actual combat operations.
The flight system in Heliborne models over 70 different aspects of flight per helicopter. This includes momentum and inertia dynamics.
There are three classes of helicopters: Attack, Air-Assault, and Reconnaissance, and some of them can add a new level to the dynamic battlefield by carrying ground units.
- Scout (reconnaissance) helicopters are small, fast, and may or may not carry a small number of soldiers.
- Attack helicopters are dedicated to air-to-air or air-to-ground operations and they carry no troops.
- The Air-Assault helicopters typically carry a mix of troops and weapons and can fill multiple roles in combat.
The Airborne Troops, MANPADS or “Man-Portable Air Defense system”, RPG soldiers, and mortar troops can be deployed anyplace, on any map.
The ground vehicles include Tanks, Troop Carriers, and Anti-Aircraft Artillery.
- over 40 legendary helicopters, including models from 1955 to the 2000s
- over 100 possible payload variants
- 5 wide open maps, inspired by historical conflicts and locations, including The Gulf of Tonkin (Vietnam), Operation Nguyen Hue (Vietnam), Badakhshan Province (Afghanistan), Khost Region (Afghanistan), and Kosovo
- single-player, co-op, and competitive multiplayer for up to 16 players
- fully supported gamepads, flight sticks, and keyboard & mouse
- refreshed UI and reworked visuals
- additional prototype machines
- night versions of maps
- an upgraded game engine
- updated in-game physics
