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 
Like you’d I wish I had the funds but I don’t really have them at the moment and I’m trying to weigh up which one to go for, I think I’d edging towards Tank Crew for a start off…but then I have to wrestle with what I posted yesterday and DCS taking up all my time!
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A lot of us are in the same boat right now I think. I think I will write an article about how we seem to be experiencing a new golden age for flight sims. The latest processing and graphics capabilities, plus VR, plus the popularity of online stores and distribution seems to have made it possible to enjoy flight sims again.
Just need the funds to support the hobby 🙂
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I’m open to any donations!
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Since Battle Of Stalingrad, I knew we were on the Golden Age, again. Bringing tanks fans and planes fans together is just so nice, so unique. I really love that! This is what simulation should be in my opinion.
Bringing people together even if they are not doing the same thing. It started with the Junkers 52! transports pilots played with combat pilot. Now tanks players play with us. Love that community!
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I got them both the second they were made available… I had to make the purchase from my smartphone since I was on vacation at the time. And even though it was a lot of money all at once I was so eager I couldn’t really wait! I also got an extra $10 discount on Flying Circus for the RoF purchases I made in the past, which I appreciated.
I am really enjoying flying those WWI birds in VR, particularly the Fokker DR.I (NOT a big fan of the SPAD), I had forgotten the crazy stunts you could pull in those planes!
Tank Crew on the other hand is still very rough around the edges, I think it is going to take a while before it can show us its true potential. The tank interior looks amazing in VR though!
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At he risk of sounding a little negative, beyond VR what is the real difference to RoF? They even said that they were using the same FM.
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A part from an updated graphics engine there is no difference whatsoever. As a matter of fact right now Flying Circus is vastly inferior to Rise of Flight: it lacks the planes, the assets, the maps, the missions and the campaigns of the original title.
There is absolutely NO reason to sink this much money on either of these two new titles right away other than financially supporting the developers, as they are still pretty much just demos at this stage.
Unless of course you also like to mess around with stuff like I do and consider VR support a must have.
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You’re right, at the moment it’s just two planes and a demo map and not that much in the way of compelling killer features.
It’s semi-starting over again at this point. The future looks very bright to me however. I think more RoF fans will jump in closer to release or sometime after (say first sale).
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I’ve detailed some of the key reasons why this is going to be a good thing in the long run.
People have been asking for RoF to get the same engine updates that IL-2 has but that would be too time consuming to go back to. Instead, Flying Circus integrates into the whole.
Single client, better graphics and a more optimized engine, VR, plus all the things still to come.
I think the value for FC will be revealed to many slowly. The visuals will continue to get better, multiplayer will get more features (eventually above and beyond RoF), IL-2s Career mode I’m sure will come to FC eventually, etc.
Right now it’s a bit of a promise but I think this is the future. And having everything in one client is super convenient for me at least.
RoF always had good fidelity flight models. Sure there are arguments but the whole is very good.
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