Someone’s made a full game out of Call of Duty’s classic AC-130 gunship missions

On-rails missions have been a staple of Call of Duty basically from COD2 onwards, but few of them felt quite so unexpected and impressive as COD4: Modern Warfare‘s awesome AC-130 sequence. What if you took that and made it into a standalone game, though? That’s exactly what Metal Thunder does.

Metal Thunder is an indie project kickstarted by Dumbbell Games, a fresh indie developer with no prior projects under its belt. A potential cause for concern, to be sure, but the good news is that Metal Thunder is already out and about. Sure, it’s an Early Access title, but it’s priced at a fairly humble 10,79 EUR (with 15% off to celebrate the release), and it’s already got an assortment of positive reviews to prop it up. So, is it any good, or is it just trying to nostalgia-bait those of us who remember how mind-blowing Modern Warfare was back in the day?

Metal Thunder takes an iconic Call of Duty mission and runs with the concept

Metal Thunder is admittedly not the first game to have attempted to expound upon this concept, but it sure as heck seems to be the best one yet. Even in Early Access, Metal Thunder runs great and feels great. Heck, it’s a perfect fit for the Steam Deck, as some reviewers have been happy to point out.

As Metal Thunder only just released in Early Access, there’s not a huge amount of content. More than enough to keep you busy for a few hours’ worth of time, but still. The good news is that Dumbbell Games has a pretty extensive roadmap in place that’s going to begin rolling out in very short order. Players can expect:

• New Campaign missions every two weeks.
• Time Trial, Stealth Ops, and various other game modes that build upon Campaign missions.
• Survival Mode.
• Ground unit control, adding real-time strategy elements to the game.
• Endless Mode and Leaderboards.

And, after the 1.0 version of Metal Thunder releases, there’s going to be a dedicated Zombies Mode to fiddle about with. Metal Thunder was released on November 1, and the plan is for the game to launch its 1.0 build in the next 6-12 months. Pretty darn quick, all things considered. We do all know how Early Access tends to drag on, however, so I wouldn’t put too much stock in this.

Yet, Metal Thunder is already quite fun and quite cheap, so why not give it a shot, if you’re into the concept?