Paying close attention to the details of today’s IL-2: Cliffs of Dover Blitz edition announcement today you’ll notice that 1C Game Studios and Team Fusion have come up with a fairly clever way to denote the two series and what is compatible with what. For this post I want to talk about what the IL-2: Dover and IL-2: Great Battles Series mean.

Dover Series and Great Battles Series

The IL-2 series now co-exists with its own history by selling products under two separate banners.

On the one side we have Team Fusion following up with a drastically revised and fully realized IL-2: Cliffs of Dover re-release and on the other we have 1C Game Studios charging forward with IL-2: Battle of Kuban (part of the IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad and Battle of Moscow continuity of products) and IL-2: Battle of Bodenplatte in 2018 and 2019.

Products bearing the IL-2: Dover Series logo will have compatibility and continuity with each other. At the moment this comprises only IL-2: Cliffs of Dover Blitz edition but later it will include a future North Africa/Mediterranean-based expansion/DLC package that will also be sold through the Steam store.

Team Fusion Simulations will be responsible for maintaining the future of the IL-2: Dover Series.

We also have the IL-2: Great Battles Series which is being done by 1C Game Studios (1CGS). That series is growing dramatically over the next two years with three new titles planned and one expected to launch early in the new year.

Titles bearing the Great Battles Series logo will all be fully compatible with each other and be created by or managed by 1C Game Studios.

Here are a list of currently released IL-2: Great Battles titles:

• IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad
• IL-2: Battle of Moscow

And here are the future titles:

• IL-2: Battle of Kuban (current release ETA is January 2018)
• IL:2: Battle of Bodenplatte (early access starts spring 2018)
• Flying Circus (pre-orders begin in first half of 2018)
• Tank Crew – Clash at Prokhorovka (pre-orders begin in first half of 2018)

Why do this?

First, technological reasons prevent IL-2: Cliffs of Dover and IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad, Battle of Moscow and Battle of Kuban coexisting together in the same game installation. While the two are very similar, the under the hood code is all unique and different.

To make Cliffs of Dover an IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad compatible title would be so complicated as to basically mean starting from scratch.

Second, what they are doing is more clearly delineating which product belongs to what series. That way there are fewer conflicts over which title belongs where – even when I talk about it on the blog with full knowledge of what is going on with the two series it can get complicated to talk about in a precise way. This is more precise.

IL-2: Great Battles is expanding its range of products to include Battles of Stalingrad, Moscow, Kuban and Bodenplatte plus adding on the World War I based Flying Circus Vol 1 and WWII tank simulation based Tank Crew.

Battle of Kuban releases in January 2018

Battle of Bodenplatte begins its early access in Spring 2018

Flying Circus will be available for pre-order in the first half of 2018

Tank Crew will be available for pre-order in the first half of 2018

All of these titles are compatible with each other and fully integrated together. Patches and improvements on one will improve all of them. That’s what makes the new IL-2 series so interesting as a product and I suspect it will continue to be a strength as it moves along.