Sixteen Years On, H.A.W.X. 2 Still Flies Through Its Thin Story With Real Skill

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2 wants you to feel like a master of the sky. It wants you to believe you are one of the chosen few, a member of the ultra-secret H.A.W.X. 2 squadron. The game promises finely honed reflexes, bleeding-edge technology and aircraft whose existence is denied by many governments. That promise falls short of delivery.

Trailer, via Ubisoft.

The Squadron’s Story

The campaign follows Major Alex Hunter, a pilot from the High Altitude Warfare – Experimental (HAWX) squadron. You also get to fly as Captain Dimitri Ivanovich Sokov of the Russian Air Force, Lieutenant Colin Munro of the British Royal Navy, and Colonel David Crenshaw of HAWX. The story picks up after an unknown period following the first game, though only Crenshaw carries over from it.

Crenshaw’s capture by enemy forces sets the plot in motion. A Ghost Recon squad and an AC-130 gunship from H.A.W.X rescue him. He later commands a remote surveillance operation with agent Drachev of the Russian Voron agency, an outfit briefly introduced in Splinter Cell: Conviction. The campaign then spans three days of missions across the Middle East, Russia and the separatist conflict.

What Changed From The First Game

The biggest shift is in how you fly. Unlike the original, you no longer pick a plane or weapon load-out for story missions. You play as a wingman rather than a flight leader, so you cannot issue orders to other wingmen. That removes a layer of tactical choice that defined the earlier game.

Instead, the focus shifts to operator-guided weapons. Stand-off missiles, precision missiles and precision bombs replace the fire-and-forget approach of the first game. The game even removes Joint Strike Missiles and multi-target anti-ground missiles from the story campaign entirely, though they remain in other modes with reduced damage and range.

Flying, Landing and Refueling

Takeoff and landing are new additions. Landing lets you rearm, which changes how you manage a mission. Aerial refueling appears occasionally as well. These systems add some depth, but they also slow the pace of missions that once moved fast.

The campaign leans on scripted sequences more than open dogfighting. Some missions ask you to remotely control a UAV. Others put you in the guns seat of an AC-130 Spooky. None of it replaces the freedom the first game offered.

Where It Falls Short

The campaign is thin. It spans three days of fighting, but the missions feel repetitive. Enemy planes constantly disperse to avoid guided missiles, which turns some fights into dull, scripted encounters. The game’s focus on operator-guided weapons means you spend more time steering a missile than actually flying.

The multiplayer mode exists, but it is not the centerpiece here. The single-player campaign is the main draw, and it is the weakest part of the package.

By The Numbers

The game’s ambition shows in its scope — a global conflict, multiple countries, a mix of missions — but the execution does not match the vision. The controls are solid, the aircraft are varied, and the settings are detailed. None of that saves the campaign from feeling hollow.

H.A.W.X. 2 is a competent, occasionally thrilling flight simulator dressed up as a Tom Clancy military adventure. It fails to live up to the promise of its own pitch. The chosen few deserve better.

flight simulator · game review · H.A.W.X. 2 · multiplayer · Tom Clancy