I’m waiting on some extra funding before I jump into Tank Crew and Flying Circus Vol 1 but there’s tons of YouTube content that has been coming out in the last few days and I wanted to share some of the highlights to give you a sense of what these two new titles in the IL-2: Great Battles Series is all about.
Tank Crew roundup
The first video I want to share straight up is from MagzTV who does a mix of content for IL-2, DCS, and other game titles out there. Tank Crew is his latest and this is a really exciting live stream. Magz really gives you a great tour of the Tiger tank, the internal features, how the multi-crew experience will probably be like, tank versus tank combat, and a hilarious exploding train.
I also want you to keep an eye out for bouncing tank shells. I’ve never seen that before in IL-2 and I don’t know if its new but it looks extremely good.
Next we have Pwnyou7 who has done a couple of interesting videos on Tank Crew. I want to share both of his videos starting with the KV-1S. Here, he goes over the control settings and shows off the interior of that tank. Plus there’s some interesting combat in there too.
From the same YouTuber, we also have his first look which is set on one of the series snow maps and that helps give you a good perspective of how things look in the winter (and from the seat of a Tiger tank again).
I should note that in all three of these videos, the gameplay is on the standard IL-2 maps. It looks like Stalingrad and Kuban maps were used in these videos – maps that were designed and meant to be used by pilots flying above the battlefield. The fact that they hold up as well as they do speaks well towards the series as a whole. The map coming in Tank Crew is intended to have even more ground level detailing than you see here while still allowing for combined arms battles.
Flying Circus
Robin Takolander takes us up in the Fokker Dr.I for ‘Lothar der killer’ and a dogfight between Robin and some SPAD’s. The map is just a placeholder (the infamous Lapino test map) for the France map that is coming later so just focus on the Dr.I and how good it looks and flies here.
Some great combat and a nice showing of how much the original Rise of Flight’s excellent damage model translates into IL-2.
TotalFreakUK gives us our second video on Flying Circus with a look at the SPAD XIII with a short sightseeing tour above the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Far from a WWI flying arena, its still a nice look at this aircraft and for Rise of Flight owners, a potential preview into what the new upgraded engine can do for scenery.
Finally, I go back to Robin for the third video and another excellent look at combat in the SPAD.
It’s still very early for both products
Both Tank Crew and Flying Circus are in their earliest of days. In many ways, they already have many elements that appear fairly matured thanks to a very solid simulation engine base and a decade or more of experience from the IL-2 team. That appearance of maturity may deceive some into thinking that this is how polished it will be by the end.
There are plenty of early issues here. There’s still time to tweak aircraft sounds and particularly bullets on fabric (a sound not currently used by IL-2) or how the Flying Circus pilots disappear right now when hit rather than slump over like they can.
Both products have very limited gameplay experiences right now but they will grow over time adding new planes and tanks and finally gaining the maps that will help complete the experience.
There’s much for the team to do and with a release date expected sometime in 2019, we’re still in the very early days of both products. They will, I expect, grow alongside the rest of the IL-2 series and alongside IL-2: Battle of Bodenplatte collectively improving the experience and growing the community.
I keep saying it but I’ll say it again… I’m excited for the future of this series right now and some of these videos should provide just a taste of what’s to come.
Stormbirds 
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