WarBirds involves dueling with WW2 era fighters and bombers over both mock and historically accurate battlefields.

Players can practice offline against enemy air and ground targets through a training mode or go head to head through matchmaking. The main way to play is to go online and fight for supremacy by choosing a side, and taking over enemy air bases in a continual war.

One of the aspects of the game is the variety of planes, over 50 of them. Most use accurate physics as well as plane modeling and take time to fully master flying. In the bombers, the player may change to gunnery spots or act as the bombardier. In the fighters, the focus is more on engaging enemy screens, bombers, and doing strafing runs on ground targets. In addition to several planes, there are working aircraft carriers, naval ships, and ground vehicles operating in the online arenas.