One of the questions that many of us were asking from the DCS World 2022 and Beyond video was the appearance of Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower. Neither landmark was on any known DCS maps and so that had us wondering what they were up to. Now we know more about it. Let’s examine the details!
Normandy is expanding
DCS: Normandy was DCS World War II’s first map and for a while it was the only map available. It had taken a bit of a back seat recently to the DCS: The Channel Map but now it seems that Ugra Media, the developers behind the map, are set to initiate a major expansion of the map.
Fresh off their success with DCS: Syria, it seems that they are taking their experience building that map into one of DCS’s most detailed and biggest maps and turning it into an even bigger map. This confirmed by Eagle Dynamics community manager NineLine in a post on the Eagle Dynamics Discord.
Well that’s interesting isn’t it? Including these two capitals into the map dramatically expands the boundaries and borders of the current map. In this rough approximation of the area being covered, it appears that we’re going to see significant growth of the available area.
Notably, this overlaps with the DCS: The Channel Map significantly which should prove interesting too. Will Ugra Media go short on some details in that area instead focusing on London, Normandy and Paris? I’m really not sure how this will pan out.
Stay tuned for more!
Stormbirds 
Sweet! More maps and bigger maps. Even if performance isn’t great because of the map’s complexity, there will be improvements in performance with updates and with hardware when new video cards are available to Joe Gamer somewhere around 2059. I don’t mind having maps that we can grow into, and for the time being just enjoy flying over solo or in small missions.
I’d rather have a fantastic map that can only handle small missions than a mediocre map that can handle 100 planes. But as it stands we have both and that’s good.
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this is the right mindset. these maps last for a decade or more. eventually your hardware evolves to meet it. I remember when Nevada was a slide-show and now its already too undetailed by our hardware standards!
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Oh, my – I can’t even begin to imagine the drama caused by overlapping maps for sale!
(I have both and doesn’t bother me in the slightest!)
Given what Ugra’s delivered with Syria and it’s subsequent expansion, I can’t wait to see what we get with the new Normandy!
question: is this a paid upgrade?
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We don’t know if there’s a payment associated with it or if the Normandy map will increase price for new owners. More details when I have them!
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I don’t mind paying for upgrades as long as the price is commensurate to what is being offered. In the same way the A-10CII was offered at a significant discount to owners of the A-10C. The same with the Blackshark 3 which is said will be made available at a much reduced price to present owners of the BS2.
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This is really exciting and I am quite thrilled – but Ugra’s announcement raises as many questions as it answers. In any case It’ll be good to see Normandy get some attention. It seems like Ugra has grown a lot in experience and capability since it was originally made.
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They have! I think there was concern about DCS: Syria and how well it would turn out but Ugra really have pushed the limits there and done a great job.
I have high hopes here too.
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I heard rumours it’s a merge not an overlap. Not sure what commercial arrangements would handle that though.
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Wow, it shows a bit in what confused/mess status the DCS World plattform is. I’m sure it will be a impressiv Map. Maybe WWII is in VR playable for me until the release. Yeah, a normal PC, not a 3090 Influencer Machine. Until there IL2 is my way. 😀
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I really hope ED will ad a way to manually add modern airports to maps in the Mission Editor. This would make it possible to use the Normandy and the channel map for modern operations also. Alternatively would be an “alternate” modern version of the maps with a few modern airports baked in. Why waste all these nice maps for only WW2 flying?
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