Reflectded from Reflected Simulations, the maker of quite a few DCS WWII single player campaigns, has released a video detailing some of the changes that are going into the campaigns that currently use the DCS: Normandy 1944 map and how they will be updated for the DCS: Normandy 2 map. In the video he dispels rumours, talks details, and gives a great overview of the map and how it interacts with his campaigns. Let’s have a look!
Reflected campaigns takes advantage of Normandy 2
I encourage everyone to have a listen in on the full 12-minutes if you want all of the details. I will summarize some key points, however, as I think we do have some important information in there that all DCS WWII fans will know.
First, Reflected gives perhaps the best breakdown of what will happen when this map releases. Those who pay the upgrade price will get full access to the Normandy 2 assets including Paris and London. If you don’t do the upgrade, you’ll still be able to take advantage of some of the enhancements to the map with the original zones from Normandy 1944 getting updated anyways.
That works out well for Reflected and his Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney, The Big Show, and Jagdflieger campaigns as each of these will be updated to work with both the free update and the full update.
Reflected is also taking the opportunity to provide major updates to Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney and Jagdflieger campaigns which see some significant changes – all broken down in the video. Some missions will be completely different while others will take advantage of the larger area to work with. The Big Show gets more modest changes with a significant update planned later.
All of these updates are free to current owners of the campaigns.
The Channel relevancy
Meanwhile, Reflected makes some great points about DCS: The Channel map which continues to be useful for several of his other campaigns. Those scenarios will not make the jump to Normandy 2 as that would both require a major rework of each campaign and the Normandy 2 map lacks in some of the areas that The Channel has covered in more detail.
Seems like, for now anyways, both maps will have their place. Especially among DCS WWII single player pilots.
Stormbirds 
I’m being (overly) optimistic and thinking we might get some kind of a map pre-order tomorrow. Maybe Sinai.
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I wouldn’t be too surprised. Both projects appear to be nearing early access release status.
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Normandy 2 is looking incredible!
Now that DCS is running a whole lot better for pretty much everyone I am hoping to maybe get to choose terrain quality as a user in the future. Imagine having a Low, Mid & High setting (low being what we have today).
More polygons and higher res textures added on the higher settings. If terrain makers do this from the get-go and the old terrains get this as an update that would be wonderful. I bet I would even enjoy Nevada when it doesn’t look like a Gameboy version anymore.
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Once I have optimised my system I might give it a whirl. With BoN, though, I am less interested. Sinai definitely, however.
Rogue ‘d’ in the first word, BTW.
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Normandy 2.0 is looking immeasurably better than Normandy 1.0! Thankfully! Looking very much forward to this.
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Great video and well worth the time!
Clearly a LOT of re-work of Reflected’s campaigns to better fit the historical missions in the area. Interestingly, the reason The Big Show doesn’t get many changes is that the IRL historical missions fit the geography of Normandy v1 quite well.
He even took the time to stretch one of the bomber escort missions out over a great distance (by DCS standards). He said it ends up being quite long, which may make some players unhappy, but he “doesn’t care” because it’s now one of the most historically accurate heavy bomber escort missions ever available in a flight sim. 🙂
Frankly, I love his approach – he’s not afraid to make creative adjustments due to limitations of the game (e.g., “Vietnam” in The Marianas), not afraid to force a higher degree of realism into his missions, and definitely not afraid to go back and re-do his missions for the benefit of his customers.
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