The sirens are blaring through the staccato of the .50 machine guns and the thick hum of the propellers. “Torpedo in the water, torpedo in the water,” the speaker cries. A few seconds later, an explosion, followed by another. Today is not going to plan.
The paragraph above depicts a usual day in the life of playing Task Force Admiral, the brand new naval combat game published by MicroProse. The game is set during the hot days of 1942, when American and Japanese carrier groups clashed to try and gain a decisive advantage in the war for control of the Pacific.
I first caught whiff of Task Force Admiral a couple of years ago, back when all that was on display was a few videos of F4F Wildcat fighters flying around in formation. Despite its depth and scope, this is a solo programming effort by Jean-Baptiste Griffo, aided by producer Amiral Crapaud, illustrator Julien Lepelletier, and 3D artist Rizki Manundar. Now, with the game out in early access, we finally get to size up this beast.
The Briefing Room
Task Force Admiral is an interesting beast among real-time strategy games. Although you have both the map and 3D views, most of the game plays out with next to no direct control over your own units past the planning stage. Every order takes a good few minutes to be properly implemented, and no element exists in a vacuum.
The relatively low volume of inputs may sound boring, but it actually makes for nail-biting missions as you realize that the torpedo bomber sortie you had planned twenty minutes ago is now going to slow down your fighter scramble. The enemy bomber force will now make it through, and it’s your fault for not planning it better.
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The seemingly glacial pace is a hallmark of naval operations, and a tradition kept alive through the ages in naval strategy games from Dangerous Waters to Rule the Waves 3. Once you settle into the rhythm, you understand that the reason why you have all this time between issuing commands is that you need it to think.
I could bore you with the specifics of what the game is and isn’t, but I think nothing quite showcases Task Force Admiral better than a playthrough of the Battle of Midway scenario.
Midway: June 4th, 1942
03:00, some 400km north of the Midway Atoll, the northernmost point of the Hawaii archipelago. In just shy of two hours, Task Forces 16 and 17 would face off with a massive Japanese strike force that hopes to capture the island. Our job, naturally, was to prevent that.
Operations were led from the USS Yorktown, the flagship of Task Force 17, sailing about 80km ahead of the TF-16, which included the USS Hornet and USS Enterprise. Each of these carriers had a standard component of four squadrons: a fighter unit with F4F Wildcats, two squadrons with SBD Dauntless dive bombers, and one group of TBD Devastator torpedo bombers.
Carrier warfare back in 1942 was a daytime affair, so the hours before dawn are best spent planning and preparing. In any carrier engagement, the main gig is to send up enough firepower to get up there and sink the enemy carrier, but actually getting that done requires a lot more than just clicking the button.
The relatively low volume of inputs may sound boring, but it actually makes for nail-biting missions.
Before you can sink a ship, you need to know where it is, and you will need scouts for that. I selected two Dauntless bombers from the Yorktown to search separate areas, and then set up a few combat air patrol screens ahead of the carrier.
Now, since we have three carriers, I decided to prioritize things. As the pointman, TF-17 would likely be the first to be discovered by enemy scouts and thus be engaged, but it also had the initiative.
As soon as we got word from the scouts, we would launch all available dive bombers from the Yorktown with a full escort party. That would leave only two pairs of Wildcats on the carrier, but I wanted to gamble.
By initiating contact with a large force, I wanted to bait the Japanese carriers into scrambling their fighters to intercept the strike. The Wildcats were there to prevent it from being a turkey shoot and give the Zeroes a black eye.
Now, with most of their fighters committed to defending the carrier, and the ship busy with evasive maneuvers, I hoped to take the edge off of the incoming Japanese strike. Fewer available escort fighters would leave their attack waves vulnerable and also improve the odds for our follow-up strikes.
Back at Task Force 16, the USS Enterprise would also send up a dive bomber group, this time with only six escorting fighters. The remainder of the force would cover a series of combat air patrol orbits around TF-16 and closer to TF-17.
Meanwhile, the USS Hornet would send its SDBs in unescorted, leaving all of its fighters on the deck to scramble against an incoming massed air strike. The torpedo bombers stayed in reserve for now, especially since they would not have the range for the trip at first light.
Thinking Force Admiral
All of this happened without a single shot being fired. By the time I finished prepping the orders, it was still dark, and I went outside to watch the waves from the USS Yorktown as the time compression did its magic. A few minutes later, it was showtime.
The carriers turned into the wind, the scouts and patrol fighters took off, and the deck crews began prepping the bombers and their escorts. An hour later, they too were off for a date with destiny.
Once the aircraft leaves the visual and radar range from the carrier, you are in the dark about their position and status. Realistic, but also stressful, like one of my favorite games, Radio Commander.
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Now, besides some monitoring and the occasional management, there was nothing for me to do. Even when a Japanese scout approached the carrier, the combat air patrol element from the Yorktown quickly dispatched it. Not quickly enough to stop it from relaying our position, however.
Going through the deck management menu, I ordered the remaining fighters aboard all carriers to be pushed to the deck. Having them in place would save some time when the inevitable Japanese strike would come, since they’d be able to take off immediately without having to move other planes out of the way first.
The die was cast: the outcome of the battle would be largely decided by all the decisions made up until now. The seas were quiet again, but my mind was in turmoil.
The design decisions behind Task Force Admiral always tend toward realism, which is a good thing, but it can also be a hassle in some situations.
The buttons on the top let you switch between map and 3D views, but selecting a specific unit to monitor is a hassle unless it’s a friendly ship. This helps stop you from peeping, but it becomes unrealistic since you don’t get feedback from your bombers besides claims for the number of bomber hits.
It would have been nice if scouts could report if a ship is on fire, listing, sinking, and so on, as it would give you a reason to set up bomb damage assessment (BDA) missions in the wake of a strike. This, in turn, would help you decide whether to press on and unleash the reserves or focus on disengaging, for example.
All of this happened without a single shot being fired.
Back at the USS Yorktown, I soon discovered I didn’t have the luxury of watching cute little planes fly around. The Dauntlesses from the USS Hornet reported a massive enemy air raid headed towards us. The announcer blared the general quarters call, which was delightfully followed by the sound of the bugle in the 3D view.
Fighter control directed all fighters on patrol to the enemy formation, but its sheer size was just too much for them to take on alone. The call was obvious: scramble all fighters. The remaining Wildcats went through final preparations, the carriers turned into the wind, and within a few minutes, two dozen fighters were climbing to meet the Japanese force.
It was now a race against time, and one I had no input over. The fighters initially airborne engaged the gaggle of torpedo and dive bombers, and radio calls of victories came in every minute or so, but it felt like trying to drink the ocean through a straw.
We scrambled enough fighters to overwhelm them, but would they arrive in time to take down the bombers? Were our own bombers going to survive the inevitable intercept on the other side of the fence? In that moment, there wasn’t much to separate me from the Japanese commander, who probably had the same questions.
As it turns out, the wave of Wildcats reached the enemy on time, and it was a veritable massacre. I could watch from the bridge as the Japanese bombers went down in flames as they approached the carrier group, but that joy turned to disbelief when I saw three D3A Val dive bombers getting ever closer to the carrier through the black puffs of anti-aircraft fire. We were going to get hit.
Anatomy of a Dive Bomber Strike
The climax of every round of Task Force Admiral happens when the strike force reaches the target. The first thing you hear is the booming of the 5-inch guns, which leave a trademark smoke puff around the target area. Next comes the unnerving crescendo of plane engines.
You can see the tiny dots morph into distinct bomber silhouettes, with their long wings and smooth tips. They look so slow and helpless, and you always wonder how a plane can fly into that wall of lead and still not get blown to smithereens.
When the planes are almost overhead, the captain issues a call for evasive action, acknowledged by the helmsman, sending the huge carrier into as tight a turn as it can manage. This coincides with the smaller 20mm and .50 guns opening up, adding to the cacophony. This bloody orchestra is as mesmerizing as it is terrifying, thanks to the excellent work on the graphics and sound design in Task Force Admiral.
I could watch from the bridge as Japanese bombers went down in flames as they approached the carrier group, but that joy turned to disbelief.
The engines keep growing louder, and now you know they have you. One by one, like a flower unfurling, the bombers break formation and start their dive. Tracers arc up, sometimes down if one of your fighters is in tow, and those few seconds feel like an eternity as you quietly pray for a lucky last moment shot before the bombs drop. Most of the time, it never comes. This was one of those days.
Three bombs found their mark, starting a fire as they blew through the flight deck. The ever-helpful status menu told me it was a heavy fire, and it certainly looked the part. Most concerningly, the sections hit were destroyed beyond repair.
I thought this meant the Yorktown would be out of commission for air ops, but to my disappointment, it seems that non-critical damage does not affect operations just yet.
The guns continued to fire on the Japanese bombers as they egressed, chased by our own fighters, but a few minutes later, they fell silent. The fire was also put out. It was like the entire ordeal had never happened. Now, if the fighters had scrambled a tiny bit later, and more bombers reached the Yorktown, it might well be resting on the bottom of the ocean.
The next contacts to show up on the radar screen were more pleasant. The dive bomber groups, still largely in one piece, were making their way back after their raid on the Japanese carriers. As the Dauntlesses landed, a pop-up gave me the option to move to the debrief or continue. I picked the former, eager to know the outcome.
The Final Balance
We scored a tactical and strategic victory and forced the Japanese fleet to retire. Midway would stand after all. All four Japanese carriers were damaged, with the Kaga left in a particularly awkward position. Without propulsion, its fighterswere out of the equation, making it an easy target for any posterior strikes.
It would take some reflection to really understand what was done right and what went wrong, but one thing I did know was that I was exhausted after the whole ordeal. The juxtaposition of having fairly little to actually do while the tide of battle can be changed by a minute’s delay is stressful, but it makes for exciting gameplay.
For the most part, Task Force Admiral does a great job at capturing the tension inherent to naval warfare. A more user-friendly method of cycling through 3D views would have been lovely, especially for scouts and strike aircraft, as the lulls can get a little boring even with time compression on.
The soundtrack hits just right, with a ‘1990s Spielberg war production’ aura that is hard to nail without sounding corny. What currently hampers Task Force Admiral is the lack of content. Upon launch, there are two main scenarios available, one in Midway and another in the Coral Sea, plus two variants.
You can currently work around this using the excellent mission generator, which lets you randomize conditions, or the scenario builder if you crave a specific engagement. However, even in its current state, before new missions trickle in, Task Force Admiral has set the visual and mechanical standard for what a modern naval real-time strategy game should be.
Closing Comments:
The early access release of Task Force Admiral makes a loud entrance, with an all-encompassing depiction of naval warfare and carrier operations. This obsession with realism is followed to a fault, and the game suffers from the clunky interface endemic to most deep-dive strategy titles. None of that was on my mind as the sirens blared and torpedoes homed in on my carrier. War may be hell, but this is strategy heaven.
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- Released
- January 27, 2026
- Developer(s)
- Drydock Dreams Games
- Publisher(s)
- MicroProse Software
- Number of Players
- Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unknown
Task Force Admiral Vol.1: American Carrier Battles is a single-player experience centered on the command of an early Pacific War US Navy carrier task force.
As the overall commander, you are in charge of seeking the destruction of the enemy naval forces and preventing your opponent, the Japanese Navy, from accomplishing its objectives. To achieve your aims, you have at your disposal the most fearsome sea projection weapon known to Man in 1942: your carrier air groups and the task forces that support them.
As a carrier task force admiral in this pioneering age of air/naval warfare, assume the mantle of retribution in this innovative interpretation of a classic topic, as the first title in a new series that will further explore and develop the genre.
Forget about the limitations of the past, and let the best of wargaming and simulation blend and blossom together in this new take on command at sea!
Re-live the great battles of the first year of the Pacific War as if you were there yourself. In here there is no dice roll, no artificial skill-tree, no arbitrary stats, selective fog of war or supernatural crystal-clear communications.
It is real-time crisis management for you, realism and historicity without concession, as little abstraction as can be, and loads of action, suspense and refreshing gameplay packed in the same single computer software.
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- Early Access Release
- January 27, 2026
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Realistic flight and naval physics
- Slow and tense atmosphere throughout
- Immersive sound design
- Amazing visuals
- Accurate depiction of carrier operation dynamics
- Awkward interfaces, especially with views
- Higher time compression settings normally unavailable due to CPU limits
- Lack of bomb damage assessment from strikes
- Counterintuitive for those without a base knowledge of carrier operations
- Security Camera Installation – indoor/outdoor IP CCTV systems & video analytics
- Access Control Installation – key card, fob, biometric & cloud‑based door entry
- Business Security Systems – integrated alarms, surveillance & access control
- Structured Cabling Services – voice, data & fiber infrastructure for new or existing builds
- Video Monitoring Services – 24/7 remote surveillance and analytics monitoring
Author: 360 Technology Group
