5 Epic VTOL VR Campaigns for the F/A-26B That You’ll Love
Did you know that VTOL VR has an absolute ton of free community made singleplayer content? Here are just a few of the many free enjoyable singleplayer campaigns for the F/A-26B.
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Sky Wars
Flying over a city in the Sky Wars VTOL VR singleplayer campaign.
Let's start off with the highly rated Sky Wars. If you couldn't tell from the logo, this campaign by Fyrcat is very loosely based on the Star Wars movies, though everyone will still be using the usual VTOL VR aircraft instead of X-Wings and TIE fighters.
There's a story here, also loosely inspired by Star Wars, except instead of fighting an evil empire the enemy are the Oil Cartels. Though that's not really very important, really this is all just a vehicle for some vaguely Star Wars themed missions and opportunities for the campaign author to use a few sound bytes from the movies.
Not to spoil too much, but there is a sort of Death Star Trench scene, and you even get to be Red 5! Of course even if the Star Wars references don't sound all that appealing, this is a pretty great campaign for the F/A-26 that can be difficult without being unapproachably hard.
Strafing a ground target with guns in Sky Wars.
Though I did run into some bugs and failed triggers once or twice. Such as during an escort mission. The transport to be escorted ended up just flying in circles when a batch of enemy planes were supposed to spawn. Also, the author does have a habit of spawning enemy planes extremely close to you.
This is probably to force you to have intense close ranged dog fights instead of the usual AIM-120 missile duels. While this worked sometimes, most of the time it just ended up feeling cheap and unfair to suddenly be barraged with multiple close ranged missiles from a place that had been completely threat free moments ago.
The trench scene in the Sky Wars VTOL VR campaign.
Regardless, Sky Wars is a great campaign that is full of memorable and unique missions. I highly recommend it, and if you're a Star Wars fan then you'll get some fun references and chuckles out of it too.
Operation Tollgate
Striking ground targets as other explosions go off in the Operation Tollgate VTOL VR campaign for the F/A-26B.
Next let's talk about a campaign that is pretty new and, highly underrated, Operation Tollgate for the F/A-26 by Liao and Zulu.
I'm shocked there aren't more subscriptions and positive ratings for this campaign, because it is an absolutely fantastically varied and creative campaign for the F/A-26. The maps are an even mix of water and land, which gives a lot of opportunities to face enemy naval and land based units, just as the missions themselves are a fantastic mix of anti air and anti ground.
You might be fairly used to the standard for VTOL VR missions, well Operation Tollgate has some missions where things get really switched up in creative ways.
Like one mission where you must hit some enemy ground targets while evading the Combat Air Patrol above, or another mission where you can't rearm, and can only refuel at a tanker, so you better use your ammunition efficiently.
Flying up to a tanker in Operation Tollgate.
The briefings are thorough, and even have a nice section that recommends a loadout to you in case you're unsure. You also start with relatively primitive munitions compared to the AIM-120Cs, AGM-65s, and AIRS-Ts that you might be used to.
Instead you'll have to make do with AIM-7s and Sidewinders for a while, but when you complete enough missions and you get access to better munitions it really feels like you earned them, and like you need them.
The missions in Operation Tollgate have a very smooth difficulty curve, getting harder as you get better tools to tackle them with, and some missions even have unexpected curveballs and priority targets thrown your way when you might expect it to already be complete.
Defending an airfield from a night attack.
If you want missions that feel unique and have a fair mix of air and ground combat then try out Operation Tollgate. It really deserves more attention than it has gotten.
Artemis Campaign
The Artemis Campaign has the most detailed map I've ever seen in a VTOL VR singleplayer campaign.
Our third singleplayer campaign is the Artemis Campaign by Judge Dredd. The first thing that struck me about this campaign was the map. It is the most well made and detailed map I've seen for any VTOL VR campiagn, and it was actually not made by Judge Dredd, but a different person called ddDeath_666.
This map, called Greek Islands, has numerous cities, settlements, and airfields spread out on several islands. The terrain itself is wonderfully blended so that it looks natural, and the settlements have suburbs, downtown areas, and even remote buildings all connected by roads.
The campaign itself focuses mostly on a single large island, and there are some really great missions here, alongside a few lackluster ones where not much happens and you'll find yourself flying over the water for long periods of time. Still, the missions that are good in this campaign are impressive.
A low level airstrike on an airfield.
Though the odd thing about the Artemis Campaign is that it gets easier as you progress through the missions, rather than harder, the first three missions are actually the best and most impressive of the bunch. The later missions are still good, don't get me wrong, but don't have the same level of challenge and spectacle as the first ones.
Oh, and I do like the thought of only giving the player limited saves in this campaign, this is a great way to add some interesting challenge to missions by making the player wonder when they should use their limited pool of saves. It was a nice change of pace to get out of the habit of saving every five minutes just in case.
Liberation of Kuwait F/A-26
Monitoring a friendly target in the Liberation of Kuwait VTOL VR singleplayer campaign.
Our next campaign is the Liberation of Kuwait F/A-26 campaign by Judge Dredd, not to be confused with a similarly named campaign for the AH-94 (which is also excellent). These missions are very loosely based on the air war and following ground invasion of the nation of Kuwait, which was then occupied by the Iraqi military, during Operation Desert Storm.
The first mission starts off slowly with the some aerial reconnaissance using your TGP, and the rest is a tight series of four bombing and close air support missions.
That's almost entirely the focus of this campaign, close air support and strikes using smart munitions. You'll be spending a lot of time watching prospective targets or friendly forces with your TGP before getting the order on whether or not to engage. Despite not being a very difficult campaign it's a ton of fun and very tightly designed.
The map in the Liberation of Kuwait mod could use a little more detail, but it is serviceable.
The map is a little barren and not the best approximation of Kuwait out there, but the missions do a great job of integrating friendly forces into your objectives.
When you support friendly forces you'll also see those friendlies fighting on the ground, and so the missions really sell that you are giving vital support to real troops below. The missions are well made, immersive, and not overly intense. Mostly you only have to make sure to stay out of MANPAD and AAA range.
If you want a little leisurely precision bombing in missions polished enough to feel like they could be DLC, then give the Liberation of Kuwait campaign a try. Though, expect to spend a lot of time looking at the ground with your TGP.
Surveying an allied attack on a destroyed bunker complex.
Oh, and this campaign does have some fun little touches, like this guy who you are told to stop for to arm your weapons each time you fly a combat mission. Very cool. This is a very well polished and scripted campaign that does a good job of making you feel like part of an operation involving other units.
Defenders Of Kyiv
Defending an allied airfield with a low level airstrike in the Defenders Of Kyiv VTOL VR singleplayer campaign.
The last singleplayer campaign here is based on the still active Russo-Ukrainian war. Defenders of Kyiv by Innocence Of Children focuses on a small group of fighter pilots just before and during the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the northern Kyiv front.
The Russian military attempted to pull off a high risk and high speed operation to quickly capture Kyiv and force the Ukrainian government to flee or capitulate. In this campaign you are part of the Ukrainian military forces that prevented this from happening.
The thing that makes the Defenders of Kyiv campaign stand out from all other custom singleplayer campaigns in VTOL VR, even more so than its setting, are the wingmen that you fly with. Both are actually characters, with dialog and personalities. In fact there's a lot of dialog in these missions.
Your two wingmen, Joker and Queen, go from corny to dramatic very quickly when the invasion starts. Their banter fills out the quiet moments and gives each mission a greater sense of context and drama.
Your wingmen are actual characters in this campaign.
While English is clearly not the author's first language and there are a lot of minor errors in the script, the intent of the writing is a solid story, and the character drama hits as hard as the missions do. In terms of story and drama the Defenders of Kyiv campaign has to be the best one out there.
This campaign also severely limits what equipment you will have access to, especially earlier on. While you'll never get all of the fancy ultra modern missiles and ground attack munitions that you'll have access to in normal play, limiting you to less sophisticated weapons makes the campaign more difficult throughout, and changes the usual flow of air to air fights. It also changes how you engage ground targets, and unfortunately not in the best way.
Using old weapons means you'll be resorting to guns more than ever in the Defenders Of Kyiv VTOL VR campaign.
While being forced to rely on dumb bombs and missiles more than usual is interesting, it's more annoying than anything when you receive objectives to destroy fifty targets... and then even more after that.
While ostensibly you'll have your wingmen and other allied units helping you, they'll inevitably end up being shot down or run out of ammo before chewing through so many enemy ground targets. This leaves you using all your muntiions up over and over and needing to fly back to base a bunch of times to actually complete the objective. This gets kind of tedious, and I wish you didn't get such a massive amount of ground targets to take out at once.
Still, the briefings have great detail, and the battles on the ground are absolutely massive and impressive. This campaign felt really unique and fresh in a lot of ways. I highly recommend it.
If you've got a campaign for any aircraft that you think deserves playing then feel free to let me know in the comments. Have fun flying out there in VTOL VR.
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