A new thread started by IL-2’s Lead Producer, Jason Williams, talks a bit about the past, the present and the future as he does a review of everything that has happened so far and talks a little about some of the focus and plans for the team in the future. It’s a great post and well worth a full read and I wanted to draw attention to some key highlights and takeaways.

Past successes and future hopes

The post that Jason has posted is called “Jason’s Briefing Room and Officers Club” and it’s meant to be a way for the Lead Producer to communicate with the community. It may not be Jason’s preferred method but a necessary one given time constraints.

Looking first at the past before turning to the future, Jason’s post talks a lot about the work that the team and their partners at Digital Forms and Yugra Media were able to do over the past year. He praises the team and mentions some of the challenges that they faced (including personnel changes, sickness, and one brain surgery).

The first of the key takeaways is that there may yet be a future for Flying Circus and Tank Crew. Jason states in his post,

Both Flying Circus and Tank Crew are awesome products in their own right and we urge everyone to grab a copy so we can continue to make these types of products in the future.

He follows up with a little bit more,

We will continue to squash bugs and evaluate these experiments for potential follow-ups in the near future. These two titles were indeed experimental gambles, one was a new take on an older product and the other was something completely new for us. I hope they work out long-term just as much as you do.

Although it sounds like there may not be a done deal on this yet, there is still some hope to see future iterations of both and as many of us have suspected, sales of the two are key to securing a future for them. Jason praises both third party teams for their assistance.

Looking to the future for the entire series

Looking towards 2020, the upcoming Hurricane, Yak-9, and Yak-9T Collector Planes are mentioned first with a release for those planned in the spring. This is perhaps a bit later than anticipated with many, including myself, thinking we might see them by March. However, spring may indicate April or May and isn’t too far off of that guess.

Details of the update for the Rhineland map include better river banks and coastlines and 13 new airfields. That’s an impressive amount and I’m looking forward to seeing where all of those are located.

An additional artist has been hired to help with the new Normandy map which will no doubt see benefits that come from the work done with Rhineland.

SimShaker technology is being added to IL-2. Those with a Gametrix JetSeat or bass-shakers will be able to get force feedback experiences through support for this new technology. It should be great for players with VR who want the ultimate force feedback experience.

Deferred shading is also mentioned and Jason indicates that he hopes for better performance and better visuals at the same time.

Another mention is Marshal-mode which has apparently hit testing and will receive a more thorough testing once the next patch is out. Marshal mode still doesn’t have a complete feature list for the following reason:

I have not shown you what it entails to you yet because the feature-set and its organization is fluid and may change from the design in testing.

Fuel systems and damage models are part of the engineering team’s goals for 2020 with drop tanks mentioned for aircraft such as the Bf109 – and no doubt countless others. So too are enhancements to damage modeling.

For those wondering about the pilot models on the Eastern Front, those are also planned with the highly detailed models now being used on the Western Front aircraft planned to be matched for those in the east.

Finally, new content rounds out the updates with Jason saying that he has reached an agreement with the folks at The Syndicate to incorporate their excellent “Kaiserschlacht” mini-campaign into Flying Circus (with hints that it could become a full campaign). Meanwhile, Gambit21’s “Hell Hawks Over the Bulge” historical scripted campaign is also being worked on and will be sold later in the year. Single player missions for Battle of Bodenplatte are also planned as are 4K texture updates by ICDP and BlackHellHound.

An exciting year for IL-2

We have what I think will be an exciting year for the IL-2: Great Battles Series as the 1CGS team starts new projects, finishes old plans, and brings some much requested and needed updates to the series. From little details like updated pilot models to new single player content, 1CGS and Jason Williams seem to have a solid plan to address a good number of items on the community’s wish lists.

This update by Jason is a reminder of all of the great things that we saw for the series in 2019 and of the very exciting things coming up in 2020. Looking forward to seeing more on each and every one of these updates!

Read the full set of posts by Jason Williams right here!