DCS World celebrates 15th Anniversary with sale, status update, more

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It’s hard to believe it but DCS World is 15-years old and the team at Eagle Dynamics goes back even further with a 13-year history. To mark the occasion we have an upcoming developer Q&A, a sale, and some new information on what is happening with DCS World. Let’s have a look at it all!

A year of celebrating

DCS World celebrates its 15th Anniversary with a cinematic trailer… in true DCS World style!

According to the update, Eagle Dynamics will be celebrating throughout the year. One of the ways that they will be doing that is with a developer Q&A. A questionnaire has been setup with a Google form allowing people to submit their questions. A thread on the DCS World forums gets you started asking your burning questions.

Suggested topics are an interesting bunch of items that include Dynamic Campaign roadmap, updates for ATC, progress of DLSS and Vulkan API integration, the future of the Mission Editor, and Flaming Cliffs. I’m curious what they intend to do with Flaming Cliffs as well!

This update also talks about history noting the foundation of Eagle Dynamics in 1991, the release of Su-27 Flanker and Flanker 2.0 in 1995 and 1999, Lock-On: Modern Air Combat published in November 2003, and the launch of DCS: Black Shark in 2008 marking the beginning of the DCS World line of modules.

The next part of the post this week mentions community content creators, server managers, user file creators, cinematic creators and more. One of the images features the DCS: A-4E Skyhawk community mod which is definitely worthy or close inspection. One that I wanted to personally give a shout out who didn’t make the list but does some great written DCS content is SkywardFM.

It sounds like we’ll hear quite a bit more from Eagle Dynamics over the next year as they celebrate this key anniversary.

A big sale

There’s now a 15th Anniversary Celebration Sale underway with discounts on a wide selection of DCS World content starting today and lasting until Sunday, September 17th at 16:00 GMT or until the 15th at 18:00 GMT on Steam.

This sale ups the ante a bit with 60% off (10% more than the usual) a huge selection of aircraft, 50% off for some, and a few others at slightly lower discounts. Not on sale is the DCS: F-15E, DCS: I-16, DCS: MB-339, DCS: Mirage F1 and DCS: SA342M Gazelle. A couple of recent map releases, Normandy 2.0 and Sinai are not on sale right now either Of those, the DCS: F-15E currently sports a small early access discount that is still in place.

A few modules aside, this seems like one of the best opportunities to pick up a DCS World module with a pretty good discount.

Future

The Chinook is coming along!

As always, we love to know what the future is with DCS World and so the last part of the update deals us a few tidbits to hold on to for future updates. First, DCS World 3.0 and 2.9 are both mentioned saying that 3.0 is being worked on and 2.9 is coming soon. DCS World point releases have tended to usher in technology changes, major feature additions, and performance improvements at times so I’m curious to know what both updates intend to bring. Will DCS World 3.0 finally bring the dynamic campaign to the sim?

Other features listed include graphics, spherical earth model, core ‘game’ functionality, improved multiplayer and coop play with ground and naval warfare getting specific call outs. We have heard in recent Q&As that expanding the ground war experience is something that may happen and I think the potential for a full fidelity armor simulator is possible.

Meanwhile, aircraft are where the passion remains and the F-4E Phantom, OH-58D Kiowa, F4U Corsair, C-130J and CH-47F Chinook all get a mention. Certainly looking forward to the slate of products on the horizon.

Read the full update right here!

13 responses to “DCS World celebrates 15th Anniversary with sale, status update, more”

  1. CanadaOne Avatar
    CanadaOne

    DCS is far and away my favourite flightsim. Everything else feels… mushy.

    The only problem is I’ve run out of stuff to buy. Now I have no excuse not to better learn the planes I have. 🙂

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply
    1. CaptainKoloth Avatar
      CaptainKoloth

      I’m in exactly the same boat in both respects!

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
  2. Anzac Avatar
    Anzac

    They certainly have become the dominant player in the niche; quite an achievement. Well done and congratulations.

    BUT despite their clear outstanding technical capability, I will point out what will ultimately be an unpopular voice, but valid none the less: the high end military flight simulation that DCS has come to dominate could, frankly, do with some serious competition. Too much market power and only one e real contender is not in our, the consumers, interests. The business module of spamming module after module while core parts of DCS lag that would make such a qualitative difference, such as single player experiences (thank goodness for third party developers!), weather engines, core flight engine, ATC to name a few, is a manifestation. For me , I have stopped buying new modules; I was on the no where cycle: release new module, buy it, spend ages building competency (snd that was fun I admit), only to find there simply was not much to do with it while third party mission makers fill the void…only to be distracted yet again by the latest released module: rinse and repeat. It’s their business module and how they make money snd I supported it up to a point; no more.

    So I am really hoping someone comes along to offer an alternative product; competition definitely needed is my view.

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      Hey Anzac! I don’t think that’s necessarily an unpopular position. DCS is an incredible sim but there are some things that it does that annoy people and a bit of competition in the space would probably serve DCS and its fans just as well as the potential competitor would.

      Might Falcon 5.0 offer such a competing future focused product? I’m not sure but I’m curious to see where it shakes out.

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      1. Anzac Avatar
        Anzac

        Hi ShamrockOneFive, Anzac here. You may recall I posted here on the topic of DCS’s emphasis on producing multiple modules as a business module and some of the implications of this for us consumers; I suggested I might write on this topic in the local rag where I have a regular column. I did so and just thought I would send you the link to it as you may be interested in it. It is the Player One column and headlines the problems with market dominance. Page 24. For your reading pleasure, Anzac.

        Click to access 042-MN-BULLETIN-SEPTEMBER-2023-DL.pdf

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    2. Alan Avatar
      Alan

      I’m with you 100%. I’ve stopped buying modules until they get the Dynamic Campaign out, and massively improve the wingman AI in particular. It’s been long enough, get it done already.

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      Reply
  3. butcher75 Avatar
    butcher75

    My mouth salivates when the Dynamic Campaign gets mentioned. I firmly believe it will be an absolute game changer if done well.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      No arguments from me on that! I really hope that dynamic campaign spawns both a long form campaign system as well as the potential for a better overall mission generator that can create short and fun missions as well as long and impactful campaign sorties.

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    2. Pete Avatar
      Pete

      We’ve already had dynamic campaign systems created by the community for a while now, so (based on existing DCS development patterns) it’ll be easier to use yet lacking usefulness (see the SRS replacement, dynamic weather etc).

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      Reply
      1. Alan Avatar
        Alan

        If it’s the same as the mods, you’re right, it will be useless. Why would they just release the same thing as the mod and take this long to do it? They will be a laughing stock if they do that. They need to fix the AI first, and then the DC will be great. But it’s been long enough…time to get it out.

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  4. Anzac Avatar
    Anzac

    It sure would, Butcher75. It’d certainly stop that shallow, let down feeling you get when you finally master a module only to find limited things to do, and certainly no cohesive impetus to keep playing ‘one more mission’. Nah, always a weak spot for DCS: technically brilliant, engrossing as far as that goes, but weak on actual gameplay and other key aspects I think should have been focussed on long before now, rather than spamming module after module. It still annoys me that I bought the Mosquito, and what a fine technical achievement that is…but beyond a few talented mission makers (looking at you, Reflected!), there simply is not much to do with it. And try raising these issues in any DCS controlled fora; moderators unlikely to put up with such mutinous talk for long.

    I guess the things I’m talking about are simply not a priority for DCS while we all keep supporting the module spamming business module. And they won’t change it unless a competitor/s emerge to challenge the DCS dominance and they start to lose sales. Competition, in short, would be good for us consumers. The genre is big enough to support se real players I suspect.

    I suspect if a new player simply concentrated on a single/select platform, did it really well, wrapped it up in the latest graphics of the sort MSFS are offering, and included a meaningful single player, dynamic campaign system, they’d leave DCS in the dust. I for one would buy as much as the new player offered just to support said competition.

    But as I said, my views highly contestable, not mainstream and in many quarters, quite unpopular. But not enough people are talking about it.

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  5. Anzac Avatar
    Anzac

    Thanks Shamrockonefive, yes, I am also hoping Falcon5 might actually become more than a glint in the developer’s eye. Imagine if the tradition of the Falcon series was brought up to date! There was also a very impressive demo vid circulating quite a while ago of (I think) a U.S. contractor combat simulator, but that was not a commercial version, and it was not at all clear if the company was going to develop a spin off commercial version. Anyway, there are little sprouts here and there; hope something blooms into full flower at some point.

    Oh, and don’t get me wrong; I really like DCS and wish them the best. Just need to be shaken up a bit in my view. I might actually put my money where my mouth is and pen an article about the need for competition for my next column in the local sheet. Hmmm…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  6. Rhino Avatar
    Rhino

    It’s nice to see a couple of new details in the video, like grass blowing in the rotor wash, and what I suspect is the Top End Australia map. I wonder what the end goals for version 3.0 are, surely the long awaited Vulkan implementation is getting close. Talk on the new Rendergraph engine has also gone quiet. Its been a while since an update broke the game too, the effort and new approach is very much noted and appreciated!

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