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This review is from a long-time Air RB player's perspective. I don't play tanks so I can't comment on that.

Red Skies has been one of the worst patches in terms of balance and game mechanics to hit this game's top tiers in months. When faced with an air meta that was not perfect but focused around Americans having the F4E, a fast aircraft with 8 excellent long range missiles and amazing interception capabilities against the dogfighting power of the Soviet MiG21bis, Gaijin responded by completely throwing a wrench in things.

Gaijin admitted that the balance system of applying high repair costs to vehicles that were performing well was not great for players, so they responded by slashing the repair cost of the F4E to 8k, while leaving the MiG at a crippling 22k, meaning a four kill game in the MiG is still a net loss, while splashing a single target in an F4E nets you money. This could be fine if the MiG was massively superior and four kills was expected, but that is not the case at all right now.

The F4E is now one of the cheapest jets in the game to repair, worse planes such as the recently buffed FGR, the MiGs, and the European offerings are all more expensive despite being harder to play, less rewarding, and less capable.

To add insult to injury rewards for actions in battle were cut to "match" this change, to the point where even the special-earning "premium" aircraft purchased for cash will only barely scrape even in one or two kill games.

Gaijin recognised that missiles could, in some situations, ensure your death while you have no counterplay. The addition of flares have greatly helped with that, but with Red Skies they have been changed and now missiles, especially the MiG's R60s, who previously had more affinity to flares but now have a seeker that is near useless. At this point flares are, as described by others, a "get out of jail free" card for anyone with an R60 on the way. While a gunfight meta where missiles are less useful could be fun, it's current implementation is frustrating in part due to the next part.

Speaking of missiles, the spotting system for aircraft and missiles, long a source of frustration with players, has only gotten worse. Aircraft can get into position just a couple KM away and fire a missile at a target with zero indication to the player being targeted anything has happened at all, as both the visual smoke and warning symbol either fail to render or disappear completely.

A move away from a "missile meta" would be fine if missiles had consistency and counterplay, but as of right now the user has no agency in how missiles work. Players are either dead instantly to a missile without even knowing what is happening and having a say in matters, or missiles are completely worthless as a whole; you can experience both back-to-back right now and it makes kills with missiles feel unrewarding, and being killed by one frustrating. Agency needs to be given to players, both on the firing and receiving end to make it less of a coin flip between "surprise death" and "dud missile"

Performance of the game, while previously great, has noticeably deteriorated with the latest patch. Running it on a decent computer, framerates from the 90s up to stable 144 were consistent on the previous major update, but now under Red Skies it's down below 60 in most cases where aircraft are present, reaching into the 30s on dogfights. This is on an i7 with a GTX 1660ti.

Generally, the last update has made the game dramatically worse to play. Gameplay, grind, and technical aspects are all markedly worse. I'm probably quitting this game until the next major update drops to check if it's worth revisiting.

One game which already started to slide into DLC madness took one step too far.

It is hard to justify adding microtransactions to a paid game. To add paid gun skins to a game most people paid $40 or more for new, with hundreds of dollars of DLC available for, just seems greedy. And that's because it is.

Possibly the best RTS available right now. There are so many units, and every strategy possible exists, and so does every counter to it.

Few games provide this much flexibility in strategy while staying so immersive and realistic to such an extent.

Brilliant.

It is hard to talk without spoiling this game, but it is just brilliant in story and narrative.

Few games pull off this level or self awareness while staying believable.