This weekend’s DCS World Weekend News most noteworthy update is news and screenshots from the DCS: Syria map which we’ve been hearing about for a little while now and looks to be making some serious progress. Let’s have a look at the latest and back at some of the past updates.

A modern Syria map

With focus on the historical DCS: The Channel Map, everyone may have temporarily forgotten that a new modern focused map is also underway and its coming to us from DCS third party developer Ugra Media.

More than just a new map, DCS: Syria is the first third party map coming out using the new framework that Eagle Dynamics has been developing for their maps. Although the new framework is a little murky as to the specifics, the results are fairly clear with detailing beyond anything that we’ve seen before in DCS World. The new The Channel Map is a clear example as is the free Marianas map that’s still coming.

Here are the latest screenshots!

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According to the update, the map covers much of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea including 5 states (Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan) and several climatic zones.

I think that last part may help distinguish this map from Persian Gulf and Nevada and rather than “just another desert map,” DCS: Syria might be able to offer a wide enough variety of scenery and visuals to keep it fresh and interesting. The “ripped from the headlines” nature of the area might also provide an interesting uniqueness to it. And if none of those appeal, the 32 aerodromes including four international airports might appeal as well.

It’ll be interesting to see how this goes!

We’ve already seen a bit of this map before

Earlier updates have trickled out for about a year now with reports that Ugra Media decided to hold back on a release and rework several areas. The change in technology base for DCS World and the new framework that Eagle Dynamics has been touting likely also factored in and perhaps the size and complexity of the areas being represented might also.

Earlier images have shown us other scenery and zones on what was clearly a work in progress development. The latest images are a bit more polished.

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Another area where the Syria map has featured was the DCS: F-16C Viper Introduction video by Matt Wagner.

While most of us were looking at the Viper, the new map was filling in the background showing considerable progress having already been made at that point. Clearly there was more to do but the latest images suggest that the map is making progress and may be moving towards release. We’ll see when that happens.