The player takes on the role of the two pilots, Jack and Amelia, as they attempt to reduce the Nazi air threat in a rich campaign of missions, each with numerous objectives and enemies as well as secondary objectives. As the action moves swiftly, you will also need to consider a strategy, assigning your partner's primary goals to take down, in order to be successful.

Iron Wings is mainly an arcade game, a flying shooter, where the shooting will not be enough, where each weapon or tool mounted on each of the two planes will have its role to accomplish for each mission, and you will have to settle the decision on what to do and how to do it.

During the flight, you will control the pilots and their aircraft, alternating between them whenever you need to and assigning commands to each other. Each of the two planes you choose will have different additional tools to use during the mission.

Additional tools like Chaffs and Magnetron as radar countermeasures, Photo Camera to report detailed visuals of certain targets, Search Light to discover and target targets on nighttime scenarios and more to discover.

Choosing camouflages wisely will also influence your visibility to enemies and, therefore, help you avoid some damage.

Iron Wings follows the story of two childhood friends who join the war in a special Air Force squadron. Under the leadership of Colonel David Ruse, their objective is to locate and arrest General Adler in front of the 'Ahnenerbe', a secret team of Nazi archaeologists and scientists.

The game begins during a fundraiser in New York and quickly moves into war operations with Operation Husky (the invasion of Sicily) following the actual events of Adler's search.

Pilots will face aerial and ground missions from New York, extensively reconstructed as in the 1940s, and other sites in the United States like Black Canyon, to many of Europe's real battlefields, from Sicily in Naples via Poland and Germany.