The game is set during the U.S. American termed "Battle of the Bulge" in 1944 and 1945. The game featured famous fighter aircraft from World War II. It also featured a virtual museum, where aircraft profiles, interviews with fighter pilots such as George Unwin, Günther Rall, and others could be viewed.
Development
Reception
Sales
Jane's WWII Fighters was released in direct competition with Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator, and became a commercial flop. In 1999, Computer Gaming World reported that the game "appears to have been murdered by Microsoft's brand recognition." Its lifetime sales in the United States reached 60,943 copies by October 1999, which drew revenues of $2.58 million. Speaking anonymously to Bruce Geryk of GameSpot, an ex-staffer for Origin Systems remarked that the game "spent some serious cash, and did not sell." He attributed its failure to Combat Flight Simulators dominance of the World War II flight simulation field during 1998, and called WWII Fighters performance "the death knell for Jane's products", after which the brand unraveled. Following the May 2000 bankruptcy of Jane's Attack Squadron developer Looking Glass Studios shortly before that game's completion, Electronic Arts declined to finish the project, and instead opted to exit the flight simulation genre. For the week ending April 29, 2000, WWII Fighters appeared at #10 on PC Data's weekly computer game sales chart in the United States, with an average retail price of $25. It climbed to #8 the following week, before exiting the charts for the May 7–13 period. PC Data named it the country's ninth-best-selling game of May 2000. By October, its sales in the region had reached 166,971 units for the year 2000 alone, which accounted for $2.5 million in revenue. Mark Asher and Tom Chick of Quarter to Three remarked that WWII Fighters "did a good job of trying to convince us that flight sims aren't dead" that year.
Critical reviews
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated WWII Fighters for its 1998 "Simulation Game of the Year" award, although it lost to . It was also a finalist for Computer Gaming Worlds 1998 "Best Simulation", GameSpot's "Simulation of the Year" and IGN's "Best Simulation of the Year" prizes, all of which ultimately went to European Air War. WWII Fighters received further runner-up positions for "Best Soundtrack" and "Best Graphics" from IGN, and "Best Sound" and "Best Graphics " from GameSpot. However, it won Computer Gaming Worlds "Special Award: Musical Score" prize. That magazine's editors wrote, "Unmatched aircraft graphics, amazing special effects, top-notch AI, and accurate flight modeling really pulled you into the experience. Multiplayer on Jane's Combat.net is a blast".
