Iron Wings, a newly-unveiled air combat game, will see players taking to the skies above some of modern history’s most well-known theatres of war.

Recently pitched on Kickstarter, the game follows two friends, Jack and Amelia, as they join the U.S. Air Force and undertake a mission to stop a secret Nazi group called the Ahnenerbe (based on a real pseudoscientific research organisation headed by Heinrich Himmler). Unlike many other military games, where the story seems an afterthought, the development team promises that the story and characters are just important to their vision as ensuring that the gameplay mechanics are engaging and intense.

As for the gameplay, although Iron Wings is billed as an air combat game, it will also feature on-foot sections, and both of these styles will be on display throughout the campaign, beginning with training in New York, and extending across the battlefields of Europe, including Sicily, Poland, and Germany. Despite the purported historical accuracy of the scenario and settings, the game will hew closer to arcade-style mechanics, rather than burdening players with the complexity of flight sims.

Simple in this case, however, does not mean vacuous. Players will be able to switch between the two characters, each in their own plane, on-the-fly while issuing orders to the other. To differentiate the two, each plane will be carrying different equipment, forcing players to be aware of their situation at all times. Take a look at the video embedded below to see the game in action and find out a bit more about its development.

Iron Wings seems a promising experience that harks back to an earlier age. Although dogfighting has long been a staple of Battlefield’s multiplayer, and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare introduced extraterrestial dogfighting into the series earlier this month, some years have passed since we last saw a campaign dedicated to the activity, especially in a World War 2 setting.

The game is being crafted by Naps Team, a veteran Italian developer with more than twenty years of experience creating titles for almost every console from the Amiga forward. While only freshly uploaded to Kickstarter, Iron Wings is already in an advanced stage of development with an estimated release date of Q4 2017 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

You can find out more about Iron Wings on its Steam Greenlight page, and back it on Kickstarter, if it scratches an itch.