Iron Aces is fictional World War 2 flight simulator. What that "fictional" means is that great liberties have been taken with the historical accuracy of the world and events. The most obvious point is that although most planes come from real World War 2 aircraft, the theatre of operations is a bit unique; The four major sides to the conflict (American, British, German, Japanese) are all fighting one another over a group of islands somewhere in the Pacific. Thus each of these nations is represented in close proximity and in direct conflict to one another.

The gameplay takes place over a series of single-player flight missions in which your American pilot will fight against the Axis forces and ally with the British. The majority of the missions take place in the air against other aerial targets.