Carrier Deck from Ultimate Games is a real-time aircraft carrier management game that tasks players with coordinating air operations across global hotspots. Check out our Carrier Deck review!
Carrier Deck is a fast-paced time management game where you will play as the Air Officer on board a CVN-76 in the midst of active war. You, alone, are responsible for all aspects of operations involving aircraft on the ship and you’ll need to work fast to ensure everything happens in time for the highest chances of warfare success.
Carrier Deck from Ultimate Games has you managing flight operations on an aircraft carrier, executing missions such as fueling, launching, and landing jets and other aircraft types under pressure. Each of the game’s eight regions presents a new set of objectives, gradually introducing more complexity.
Despite a solid foundation, the game quickly becomes overwhelming. The tutorials are overly technical and fail to explain key mechanics clearly, which can leave you floundering early on. I spent over ten minutes stuck on a mission simply because the tutorial didn’t properly explain the objective. And even once you figure out how everything works, the inputs are far more complicated than they need to be for what the game is asking you to do.
This PlayStation 5 port suffers from an interface that feels poorly adapted from its PC origins. Nearly every action involves a tedious, multistep sequence that could have been simplified. For instance, intercepting an enemy aircraft requires that you click it on the radar, manually queuing the correct plane type, select an aircraft – without any real visual guidance – and dig into its menu to assign a mission. This feels redundant since selecting the radar target already implies a mission. All steps must be done in an exact order. Deviate even slightly, and the mission won’t register. I found this rigid and unintuitive design significantly slowed down the pacing — which is already tight and unforgiving to begin with.
Carrier Deck has a very basic visual style, with every mission taking place on the same static aircraft carrier. There’s little variety in environments, which makes extended play sessions feel a tad monotonous. The UI compounds this with its reliance on a mouse-pointer interface, which certainly feels awkward and frustrating on a console like the PlayStation 5. This is twice as bad in menus where your instinct to use a directional pad just rotates the camera. The background music, while repetitive, has a certain charm — like a bar band jamming in the background. It offers a light rhythm that helps offset the intensity of the gameplay.
Trophy hunters will find a full list with a Platinum trophy that is split into 13 Bronze trophies, 16 Silver trophies, and 4 Gold trophies. They’re primarily tied to campaign progression, earning five stars on missions, and surviving difficult scenarios, so as long as you have some patience and carry onward, you shouldn’t have any problems with this trophy run. Just complete a bunch of missions, and you’ll be on your way toward getting that shiny Platinum. Oh, and be sure to unload a ton of cargo pallets as well.
Carrier Deck has a solid concept and a decent variety of mission objectives, but its execution falters. Unclear goals, excessive inputs, and a poorly adapted interface make for a frustrating experience — at least until you figure out how the systems work. While it might appeal to dedicated aircraft carrier enthusiasts, most players will likely find the gameplay tedious rather than rewarding. With a stronger console port and better onboarding, this could have been a much smoother and more enjoyable experience. Carrier Deck is out on PlayStation 5 with an $11.99 price tag. There’s also a PlayStation 4 version of the game available as a separate purchase for the same price.
Disclaimer
This Carrier Deck review is based on a PlayStation copy provided by Ultimate Games.