Eagle Dynamics has certainly been on a roll recently with aircraft and map announcements coming every week. Matt Wagner from Eagle Dynamics has let slip that there are additional modules in the queue waiting to be announced. Ok then!

Four more!

The DCS community loves new modules almost as much as we love to speculate about what might be next. A post by Matt Wagner on the DCS forum confirms that there are additional modules in the works. Four of them to be exact.

Four more new 3rd party module announcements in the cue. What could they be? 😁

Matt Wagner / Wags on the DCS forum

Obviously, this is intended to build a little additional hype as if there wasn’t already sky high levels of hype.

So, let’s indulge a little about what might be part of the announcement.

All new or something that we know?

So far, Eagle Dynamics announcements have almost all been genuine surprises for me. Often we get hints months in advance before something is announced but most of them have been a surprise. The exception would be the DCS: Kfir from AVIRON which I’ve had on the Stormbirds DCS World roadmap for a long time now. There may be a few like the Kfir that we already know about but haven’t yet received an official announcement.

OctopusG for example, already sporting a published module with the DCS: I-16, has shown off some impressive video and screenshots of an in-development Su-22 Fitter. It’s not yet been mentioned but it’s a likely candidate.

Red Star Simulations and the MiG-17F have been occasionally providing updates on their Facebook page for quite some time now with the vowed goal of taking their project to Eagle Dynamics for inclusion as a paid module.

After that, I have to turn to more speculative projects.

The community has talked quite a bit about the seeming confirmation from Eagle Dynamics some time ago about a very early version of the MiG-29 becoming a full fidelity option. Recent developments in the world of course may have made even that more difficult. To date, its never been a project that’s seen official confirmation and it may have even been spun off to a third party.

The coordinates teased during the DCS World 2022 and Beyond video seemed to indicate an Afghanistan map was in the works. Possibly a more fully featured development of one that Eagle Dynamics was already offering in their professional version of DCS, or, again, it may have been spun off to a third party.

We also know that Deka Ironworks, proving their talents with the China Asset Pack and DCS: JF-17, are working on something. We not too long ago speculated that an Su-30MKK might be within reach although comments since then have poured cold water on it.

I could also take a stab in the dark and point to comments from people like Nick Grey, owner of Eagle Dynamics, who has expressed a desire for an F6F Hellcat for the sim. Rumours too have swirled about a high fidelity ground vehicle such as an M1 Abrams or M4 Sherman. Wishlists and wishful thinking have covered everything from the F/A-18F Super Hornet, F-105 Thunderchief, Tornado GR, B-1B Lancer, A6M Zero, and others.

Final thoughts

There’s clearly lots to look forward to and more options and opportunities for what appears to be a growing sim that has added on plenty of third party developers. Adding modules is fantastic and a collection of third party developers churning out new content can make for compelling experiences but it also means that there may be even greater pressure on Eagle Dynamics to upgrade the core of the DCS experience to support all of that. That will be key and a veritable offensive of quality third party content may even offer a bit of an opportunity for elements of their dev team to turn more towards upgrading the core.

I too want to make a case that while all of these new announcements are very exciting and participating in a little wish list making can be lots of fun, it’s also important to maintain perspective. New modules and content help a sim like this live on, but we as sim enthusiasts also need to remember that we already have whole collections of absolutely incredible mind blowing content that is here right now.

It’s great to lust after the next big thing. Just remember to enjoy the things you already have!