| Rowan's Battle of Britain | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Rowan Software |
| Publisher(s) | Empire Interactive |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Combat flight simulator |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer |
Rowan's Battle of Britain, sometimes known simply as Battle of Britain, [1] [2] is a World War II era combat flight simulation game set during the Battle of Britain in 1940.
The combat flight simulation has both RAF and opposing Luftwaffe forces featuring over 800 square miles (2,100 km2) of sky and hundreds of aircraft.
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| Metacritic | 79/100 [3] |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| AllGame |    [4] |
| Computer Games Strategy Plus | [5] |
| Computer Gaming World | [6] |
| Eurogamer | 7/10 [2] |
| GameSpot | 8.4/10 [7] |
| GameStar | 73% [8] |
| GameZone | 6.5/10 [9] |
| IGN | 7.7/10 [10] |
| Next Generation | [1] |
| PC Gamer (US) | 80% [11] |
The game received "generally favourable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. [3] Samuel Bass of NextGen said of the game, "Detailed, beautiful, and polished to the nth degree, this is the WWII sim we've all been wating for." [1]
The game was remade twice, first in 2005 as Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory by Shockwave Productions, Inc., [12] [13] and again in 2007 as Air Battles: Sky Defender by Wild Hare Entertainment, a modified version of the above game with a more arcade-style gameplay. [14]
On end-of-support of the game, the source code of the game was released by Rowan Software under the "Empire Interactive License" in 2001. [15] Following the source code release a group from the game's community [16] took up the support and produced several unofficial patches until 2005. [17] [18]
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Bob Mitchell: What has prompted you to release the source code for MiG Alley and Battle of Britain? Dave Whiteside: Because we are no longer doing flight sims [after Empire took us over at the end of 2001], and we would not be able to publish any patches that were required [no money was allocated to this], rather than let MiG die and all the code sit doing nothing it was considered a good idea, a swan song, if you like, for Rowan [after 13 years in the flight sim market].