Warhammer 40,000: Dakka Squadron Review (Switch, Android, iOS & PC)

There isn’t a franchise in the world that can touch gloves with Warhammer 40,000, much less rewrite its legacy and sew itself into the tapestry of its cultural heritage. There is, however, a whole host of alternatives that can pull on all the same nodes and somehow pass themselves off as lukewarm renditions of several of 40k’s cult favorites. But let me tell you, Warhammer 40,000: Dakka Squadron is not one of them; it’s an original formula that, despite being relatively common, gameplay-wise, isn’t a portal for potential imitation. No, this is something else—a dogfighting vessel that comes gut-loaded with cockney pilots, half-baked aircraft prototypes, and a ludicrous amount of high-octane aerial confrontations.

I’m just going to come out and state the obvious: this isn’t your bog-standard Flight Simulator clone, nor is it an excuse to flex your aviation skills and get creative with your mid-flight barrel rolls. On the contrary, Dakka Squadron is unmistakably a Warhammer experience, and thus, a brutal reminder that things don’t necessarily need to make logical sense in order to function — especially at the hands of a bad-mouthed Ork with an attitude problem. And that, really, is what Dakka Squadron is: loose-lipped Orks waging war with one another for blood, teeth, and some form of currency that has no real value outside of their chosen airspace whatsoever.

So, is it actually worth getting your knuckles bloody for? Or better yet, is it worth pouring a dozen or more hours into for the sake of earning your stripes as a fledgling pilot? To unravel such answers, we’ll first need to rewind it back and touch base on several of its features. Care to join us as we congregate out on the airstrip and imitate our best Ork impressions? Then let’s jump right in.

Roll With the Punches, Mate

Warhammer 40,000: Dakka Squadron never quite struck me as being something particularly out of this world, as its preliminary passage left me with a series of tropes that I, quite frankly, had already seen numerous times before. In the menus, I was left to gloss over two rather simple choices: which clan would I choose to side with, and which of them would I aim to belittle and ultimately transform into my personal enemies for the duration of the war? It didn’t take much to persuade me, mind you, as each clan had a hearty amount of niche skills and attributes that I could collectively pool into an arsenal of my liking. For example, one clan had the ability to accrue more teeth during battle—an in-game currency that just happened to make sense, because, you know, Warhammer. 

On the adjacent side of the roster idled another clan—a band of aviation scallywags who possessed the power to carve up more damage, but at the expense of losing out on more protection at greater altitudes. Regardless of the outcome of the attributes, I had it engraved in my mind that, if I could at least learn how to execute a well-oiled barrel roll or two, then I’d be the one laughing down the sights as I picked off my targets one by one. As it turned out, though, it didn’t matter all that much, as flying, weirdly enough, wasn’t something I had needed to learn before throwing myself into the thick of the battle.

Bypass the Pilot Training, Please

Whilst the bulk of the gameplay does, in fact, revolve around coursing through numerous peaks, canyons, and tunnels and peppering your enemies with bullets, a lot of it doesn’t actually require a steady hand to navigate. In fact, I often found that winging it was a surprisingly successful way to carve through the biomes and rack up a slew of kills. I can’t say I went into any level, for that matter, with a plan of action — and it wasn’t as if I should’ve had, anyway, as my odds drastically improved whenever I decided to roll with the punches and throw myself into the heat of the moment. And when all’s said and done, that’s sort of what made me fall in love with Dakka Squadron right from the get-go: the fact that it never forced me to endure hour-long tutorials before granting me control over the yoke.

I’m not saying it’s a messy game, because it isn’t. Being a Warhammer game, though, you sort of have to expect to encounter your fair share of balls-out shenanigans and open-ended pandemonium—two hallmark qualities that make up the breadth of, well, most Warhammer games. It isn’t exactly structured, is what I’m saying; if anything, it comes across as a little sloppy — something that, in all fairness, it strives to be, if only to make situations slightly more unpredictable and less mundane. To that end, Dakka Squadron is teeming with surprises, despite the fact that its gameplay loop is as simple as piloting a vessel and gunning down enemy soldiers.

Smoke and Haze, Bombs and Bullets

The controls aren’t all that difficult to grasp, either, as a lot of the mechanics and in-flight functions are part of a relatively simple system that touts one or two major layouts. Flying, for example, is arguably one of the easiest things to learn, as a good portion of the campaign maps have fairly wide-open spaces to scoot around in, thereby making the likes of unwarranted crashes slightly less common than in other games of its caliber. But that isn’t to say that you can openly waltz from one beacon to the next without the possibility of being the subject of a gunfight, though. Matter of fact, each level does require you to strategically move throughout the duration of the battle — a cycle that requires you to dip, duck, dive, and roll for upwards of ten minutes or more.

As far as combat goes, Dakka Squadron does, thankfully, provide you with a generous selection of goals to complete, rather than settle for a few pawns on the radar and little more. For example, certain battles require you to destroy turrets, hangars, and other enemy settlements, whereas others opt for a good old-fashioned slide-and-sweep style—an approach that primarily involves locating enemy targets from afar, and utilizing a series of high-powered weapons to whittle down the enemy’s defenses and divvy up the assets once the slate has been successfully blown to smithereens.

I’ll be honest, it didn’t all that long for me to wrap my head around the algorithm and figure out what I needed to do to be able to complete my objectives. It helped, too, that each level in the campaign mode never really strayed all that far from its chosen path. It had the occasional surprise, sure, but I was never exactly at a loose end, either.

Verdict

Warhammer 40,000: Dakka Squadron is more than capable of scratching that in-flight entertainment itch of yours, if not for the duration of an entire journey, then for a solid amount of hours. Granted, there isn’t a lot to unpack when it comes to mission variety, what with a good ninety-five percent of them all being textbook examples of a traditional shoot ‘em up game. However, that isn’t to say that it isn’t worth drumming up a pilot’s license for, as the campaign itself does fashion a quality amount of content from the bare bones of a seemingly recycled blueprint. What’s more, it adds a substantial amount of flare to the mix by incorporating a handful of witty characters and tongue-in-cheek phrases that, under the right circumstances, could make even the most close-minded foreigners of the franchise feel the sting of its Ork-centric identity.

I’m not about to put my hands up and say that Dakka Squadron is the best 40kentrée in the world, because one quick dive into the archives will quickly remind you that there are so, so many more alternatives sewn into the same fabric. Having said that, as far as aerial combat games travel, I’m willing to give credit where it’s due and call Dakka Squadron for what it is: a friggin’ good time, and not to mention a real sight for sore eyes for those attached to a lifelong obsession with the franchise, to boot. The fact is, there's a whole lot of Warhmmer here, and so, if you have been itching to take to the skies and scream “WAAAGH” at the top of your lungs, then boy, allow Warhammer 40,000: Dakka Squadron to be your guide from here on out.