This evening we got what might be construed as a teaser from IL-2: Great Battles Series producer Jason Williams. It’s cryptic and it may be nothing but it could also be something so let’s have a quick look at what is going on.
Something is coming?
Earlier this evening, Jason Williams took to the IL-2: Great Battles General Discussion forum and wrote an interesting and extremely cryptic post titled ‘Wednesday.’ The containing message reads,
Humpday is what we call it in the USA.
Jason Williams on the IL-2 forum
We call it that in Canada too but I don’t know if we should take this literally. Jason has usually teased every major announcement with something in the days and weeks before. We’ve had some fun with some of them with Morse-code and reminiscing about the old days as clues to what comes next. So what could it be?
It could be anything…
We don’t have much to go on here so let’s have a look at this as logically as possible.
We know that the main 1CGS team is working on IL-2: Battle of Normandy. This is a major project that is now well underway but has so far delivered just one piece of content with many more in the production stages. If this is a tease and if there is something new coming, it’s something that is going to happen alongside development on Battle of Normandy.
That’s happened in the past when Jason announced Battle of Bodenplatte, Flying Circus Vol 1 and Tank Crew – Clash at Prokhorovka in one massive announcement. It took me by surprise and it was made possible by bringing in two third party teams to do the work. Ugra Media contributed significantly to Flying Circus Vol 1 and Tank Crew was contributed to by Digital Forms who did the modeling of the tanks.
With Flying Circus Vol 1 now long finished and Tank Crew – Clash at Prokhorovka in the final wrap-up stages (based on the last Dev Diary) that leaves the door open to future projects and collaboration with these or other third party teams.
One of the items that hasn’t been talked about for a while are the mobile AAA guns that were originally part of the Tank Crew plan and then planned for later on. These could be announced as part of a Collector Tank package as with some of the aircraft.
It could be Vol 2 to Flying Circus with a selection of new aircraft and a new location. I’ve previously hypothesized that this project and the old Channel map could be linked with the Normandy project and share art assets while introducing some interesting aircraft to the mix.
It could be a new Tank Crew title focused on another part of the war. Again, it might be linked with the Normandy project and introduce new tanks that could interact with the Normandy invasion.
Others have suggested that the Humpday reference refers to The Hump, a nickname given to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains, where USAAF pilots flew transport missions in supply of Allied forces on the other side. That could be connected with a plan to introduce a flyable DC-3/C-47/Li-2 to the series. The AI model has already made great progress.
Yet another possibility is that whatever is being announced is an entirely new entrant to the series and not specifically following up any previous announcement. As outside of the box as I can go on this it’s hard to really pin down what it might be aside from it likely having a strong connection with the IL-2: Great Battles Series.
Of course, it could be something far less exciting although still worthy of a tease for the series. Either way, it’s important not to get too worked up but at the same time we can engage in some good old fashioned speculation. What will Wednesday bring? I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
Stormbirds 
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