Ugra Media have just put up a FAQ on their DCS World forum with all kinds of follow-up information pertaining to DCS: Normandy 2. It answers some of the questions that have come up since the announcement on Friday. Let’s dig in!
Normandy 2 questions answered
We learned quite a bit with the reveal of DCS: Normandy 2 back on Friday but now we know a little bit more. This map is being created by Ugra Media, the same team behind the original DCS: Normandy map. The very first version of DCS: Normandy released back in November of 2017 and since then it has gone through a couple of significant overhauls to improve its performance and looks.
Now, five years later, Ugra Media are coming out with a much more substantial map. The new map is 400×600 km in size and significantly larger than the map that twas previously available. We now have a map showing off what the expected dimensions will be.
The previously version of the map had a very narrow high detail area and a much larger low detail area. The new one expands that dramatically with high detail areas expanding north, south and east of the original.
Going by the FAQ, this is a complete remake of the map with revised, updated, and otherwise brand new assets. There’s also the inclusion of London and Paris.
One of the biggest areas of concern was how the map would integrate with currently available content. The FAQ answers that:
Because they are different maps, all existing missions and campaigns created for the Normandy 1944 and the Channel maps will continue to function on those maps, nothing changes. However, missions created for the Normandy 1944 map would not work in the Normandy 2.0 map. As such, the Normandy 1944 and Channel map will continue to be for sale.
Also of interest was their answer that Normandy 1944 and Normandy 2 owners may be able to fly on the same multiplayer servers together. This is an curious statement and I’ll be interested to see if this ends up holding true through to the end of development.
There also will not be winter textures like we see with The Channel map so scenarios making use of the winter scenario there will continue to be unique.
Additional thoughts
I’ve seen a lot of different takes on the news of this map and I’ll toss in my own.
Normandy 2 itself sounds like quite a solid upgrade over the original. Released 5 years ago, that version of the map was on the bleeding edge of the technology at the time and it came with some serious problems. It saw, as I mentioned earlier, two major updates that ultimately brought it up into a good place. It’s not going away but I can see Ugra Media’s team being excited to take this scenario to a new level and make use of DCS’ latest map making technology to offer a bigger, more detailed, more impressive and valuable map that covers a much wider area of the Normandy conflict.
It’s remarkably similar in size to the new IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Normandy map. That map covers a wide variety of scenarios so I can see this one also being very useful from that standpoint.
This does also slightly confuse the marketplace a bit when it comes to recommendations. Previously, I tended to suggest the DCS WWII map based on what the person wanted to do. If they were interested in some of the campaigns that used either map then I’d suggest either map respectively. If it was multiplayer, DCS: Normandy was the map that the servers seemed to be supporting the most so that was often my recommendation.
With the launch of this map, expected in Early Access at the end of 2022, there’s now three options on the table. If someone wants to play an older campaign, they may need to pick one of the other two maps, while newer content will likely begin to make use of this one.
Seeing as the previous maps aren’t going away this isn’t the fatal blow to campaign makers like Reflected Simulations that some have charged this new map with. Still, consumers will need to make careful decisions on the type of content they will want to engage with and that kind of complexity can be a barrier to new players. We can do our best to help steer them in the right direction for them when the time comes.
Stormbirds 
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