Immersed in a series of increasingly frantic missions, you - playing the part of Hawk, the pilot of the prototype Battle Engine, codenamed Aquila - take part in a saga that sweeps across a ravaged globe. One man can make a difference. A sudden climatic change triggers a global crisis and a dramatic betrayal propels an adolescent misfit from obscurity into the middle of a conflict that pits one ancient enemy against another in an epic battle for survival. The Battle Engine Aquila world consists of a series of islands that are the result of devastating climatic change brought on by centuries of atmospheric pollution. Rising water levels and floods have left only the highest ground above water. With land at a premium, tensions have built between the surviving nations, as each one tries to stake a claim to the precious dry land, increasing the landmass for their swelling populations. Each encounter takes place upon a vast battlefield, with war raging between two feuding sides - the Forseti and the Muspell. This is a major war, with thousands of units engaged on each side, ranging from infantry to tanks, planes, battleships and artillery. You alone must pilot the fearsome Battle Engine Aquila, a behemoth war machine and the single most destructive unit on the battlefield, capable of patrolling from the ground or attacking from the air. One-on-one you can destroy most individual enemy units, but you can't take them all out single-handed - there are simply too many of them!