Play Their Finest Hour: The Battle Of Britain Online

Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain is a combat flight simulator released in 1989 for the MS-DOS platform. Developed and published by LucasArts, the game focuses on the aerial conflict of 1940, presenting the campaign from a first-person perspective. Players engage with this historical setting by piloting aircraft from both the British Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe.

In gameplay, players control the pilot of a selected aircraft, with the option to also take command of gunners or a bombardier in multi crew planes. The core experience involves completing a series of missions, which include training exercises and historical combat scenarios. British missions typically involve defensive intercepts against bomber formations, while German assignments center on attack runs, either escorting bombers or conducting bombing raids directly. Progression is mission based, with players managing flight controls, navigation, and combat systems to achieve objectives such as destroying enemy aircraft or protecting targets.

The game features a special campaign mode that departs from strict historical recreation, allowing players to influence the strategic outcome of the Battle of Britain. This mode incorporates a strategic map where players organize aircraft groups, assign them to missions, and then fly one of those missions personally. The result of each flown mission impacts the status of other concurrent operations and the overall campaign. Victory conditions differ for each side: the British aim to survive for a set duration or eliminate a sufficient number of German planes, while the Germans seek to destroy RAF fighters both in the air and on the ground. Additional tools include a mission builder for creating custom scenarios and a film playback function for reviewing recorded flight sessions.