This has been a difficult and somewhat uneven year for the IL-2 series. There have been victories and bumps in the road. Though the future of the series is both assured but also a mystery, this year has felt a bit like a holding action while the future is determined. It hasn’t been devoid of IL-2 content and we’ve seen some new releases. Let’s look back at 2023 for the IL-2 series and then look forward.

Great Battles in 2023

There were lots of good things about 2023 for fans of the series and that’s where I want to start. On a core level there were few big changes for the sim, however, Career mode was an area that saw a lot of attention given. Quite a few new mission types were added and old mission types were tweaked. The line-up of squadrons on some campaigns was altered and mission types for specific squadrons helped to give individual squadrons a bit more of an identity.

Single player content saw a boost in the area of Scripted Campaigns too. Sky Nomads from 1CGS in house campaign maker, BlackSix, took us back to the Kuban map and put us in a Yak-7B for some very fun missions. I thoroughly enjoyed that campaign! We also saw Jaegermeister release a first paid campaign with his Overlord campaign featuring the P-51B.

For new content we also saw a number of aircraft releases. For WWII, the releases were few and far between but we did see the release of the Li-2, a Russian specific DC-3 derivative, come in September and that was then followed up by the La-5F Series 38 in October. The IAR80/81 just came out, well… half of it, in just the last week along with the Waco Glider.

For World War I fans, the releases this year were more substantial with Flying Circus getting the entire Vol 3 content released this year as well as two new Collector Planes. While the Vol 3 releases were refurbished models from Rise of Flight, brought forward and enhanced for the newer sim engine, the Collector Planes were unique types never seen before in the series. Sopwith Snipe and the Siemens-Schuckert D.IV were both fun and wholly new to the series additions.

Flying Circus’ map saw the addition of four additional seasons and substantial detail improvements to the Western Front map. The series is likely not going to see its channel and eastern front maps redone (though never say never) so at the very least we’ll see the West Front map be filled out with more details.

Speaking of maps, one bright spot in the series right now is the reveal that a third party is committed to making a Karelia map for the series – be sure to check out my exclusive Q&A. With the map already well advanced, it seems likely that we’ll see this free addition at some point offering new places to fly and a unique history of the Eastern Front covered for the first time in this third generation of the series.

The Cliffs of Dover series has a future too

In September, Team Fusion Simulations, who are the current day caretakers of the IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover Series, announced their new title. IL-2 Sturmovik: Fortresses and Focke-Wulfs – Dieppe tackles a lesser known part of the Western Front air war focused on autumn 1941 up to the Dieppe raid in August 1942.

Aircraft will include some new single engine types such as the Typhoon, Spitfire V, early models of the P-51 Mustang, early Fw190A models, Bf109G-2, Bf-110F and others. A big highlight are plans for the team to tackle a B-17E and a Wellington III bomber bringing two larger aircraft to the series.

VR, new cloud technology, revamped landscape textures and other updates are planned for the whole of the series as it continues to evolve.

To the future

This was also a challenging year for the series. We’ve gone from knowing what the next instalment is for years and years to not knowing what the plan is for the future. I think most of us were worried at some point that there may not be a future. For me, those fears are largely gone but we are still left with a bit of a question mark on what exactly comes next – though I’ve speculated a bit about what it could be.

A new products almost a certainty at this point though they haven’t yet committed to that fully so its an open ended question. Some status updates through the year have given us the tiniest of news so we do know something is happening at the least.

This was also a tough year with some public relations issues that caused an uproar in the community. That has somewhat settled down now but I think the bigger picture here is that some relations are frayed, anxiety around the future is running moderately high, and of course real world considerations is a factor too. It’s made for a challenging year for everyone – the devs too no doubt.

All of that said, we aren’t exactly flying blind either. A roadmap released within the last year telling us what content is planned for the Great Battles series stretches out into 2024. What’s coming? Well we’ve got the Spitfire IXc (an earlier model than the Spitfire IXe that we already have), the Ta152H and the I-153. These are all planned for 2024.

I’m most excited by the I-153 as a WWII era bi-plane hasn’t been done in the series yet and the I-153 saw service well past its obsolescence so it should hopefully have some relevancy through at least a couple of campaigns. The Spitfire IXc could be interesting too depending on how many modifications the type comes with as there’s considerable differences between the earliest Spitfire IXc models and the 1944 versions. We’ll have to see how much territory that covers. There’s also the Ta152H, an airplane that I’ve always liked and been interested in, but also one that will have very little Career exposure – and its going to have to be semi-fictional to fit in.

That’s not all as we also have another batch of Rise of Flight aircraft coming to Flying Circus in what I can only assume will be titled Volume 4. That will include the Sopwith Pup, Airco DH.2, Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, Albatros D.III, Fokker E.III, and Roland C.IIa.

The two Sopwith aircraft are both high on my wishlist for WWI types so I look forward to seeing those come in the new year. I also hope that 1CGS will find some time to devote to the WWI AI which is noticeably less capable than the AI for IL-2’s WWII aircraft. It has improved, as recently as the last patch, but it may still need a bit more work. That would be a welcome update for single player pilots.

Here’s hoping

A combination of factors has the community seemingly feeling like its on a lower ebb this year with some looking to put their sim dollars elsewhere. Some have been vocal in the comments here on Stormbirds and elsewhere on these issues. On the other hand, the series has never been more complete nor offered more content that it does now too. Its a weird place to be in but it is what it is. I hope that we’ll see everything move in a more positive direction in 2024 – I’ll be crossing my fingers that it is so!