Airport Control 27: four real airports, pilot readbacks, and forty-six euros

Air traffic control is a profession very few games dare simulate seriously, because it essentially consists of talking and remembering.

Airport Control 27 dares, and it commits resources.

Attention to detail

The studio has clearly spent a great deal of time on what most games treat as scenery.

Jet bridges are fully animated, in single and dual configurations, with realistic aircraft docking.

The lighting systems are complete: approach lights, runway lights, taxiway lights, built to real-world standards.

And the ground markings are faithful: taxiway markings, runway designators and stand guidance lines reproduced from real airports.

That level of detail is not cosmetic in this genre. A controller reads the ground and the lights as much as the screen, and an airport with wrong markings is an airport you cannot learn.

Procedures and radio

This is the heart of the game, and where it separates from approximate simulators.

Air-to-ground communications follow real procedures, with pilot readbacks synchronised in real time with your instructions. In other words the pilot repeats what you just said, as in real life, and that is how you confirm they understood.

The game offers multiple pilot accents, which is a terrific detail, because understanding a difficult interlocutor is part of the job.

And the procedures are authentic: standard arrivals, approaches, standard departures, altitude and speed restrictions. The studio announces regular updates tracking changes to real-world procedures.

The content

Four airports at launch: Jinan Yaoqiang, John F. Kennedy, Shenzhen Bao'an and Ronald Reagan Washington National.

Each features six levels plus an endless mode, where flight schedules are randomly generated.

That is few in number, and it is consistent with the fidelity requirement: reproducing a real airport down to the markings takes time.

What to know

The game launched the day before yesterday into early access at 45.89 euros, developed and published by CCC Games, and shows 41 positive reviews out of 58, roughly 71 per cent.

And here I have to be blunt: the price is the main question mark.

Forty-six euros for an early access with four airports is specialist simulator pricing, and it therefore addresses an audience comparing this game to professional tools rather than to the week's other releases.

If you are that audience, the quality of the procedures and the lighting probably justifies the investment, and endless mode provides longevity.

If you are simply curious about the profession, wait for a sale or for more airports. There is no shame in finding four fields at that price expensive.

How long did you last in endless mode at JFK? We compare cold sweats on the InsertCoins Discord.