It’s perhaps the worst kept secret in the flight sim industry now that the next evolution of the IL-2 Sturmovik series would be centered around the Korean war from 1950-53. Today should put any doubts to rest as Korea IL-2 has just been officially revealed by the 1C Game Studios team.
Early jet air combat and the last of the propeller fighters
The Korean War era is an interesting time for those interested in the history of air combat. The last of the great propeller driven fighters, almost entirely derived from WWII from 5-years earlier, served in combat together with the first generations of jet fighter.
A teaser project reveal video was released today. It’s a 48-second teaser rather than a full-up trailer but it provides us some key visuals.
Developer Diary No 1 on a new Korea focused website gives us our first detailed overview of the project by 1C Game Studios.
Here are some key points:
- Focused on the forces of the USA, North Korea, USSR, and China
- New game engine with DirectX 12, PBR rendering, new atmospheric visualization, vegetation, effects and sound API
- New aerodynamics, systems, and damage model
- New AI ordering system and new radio system
- Most work on the title is complete: New technologies, assets, and map are or are mostly complete
- Some items such as the GUI and the game modes are under development
- There’s a “skip time on the route” feature
- Ability to walk (and swim)
- Map is 440×400 km and four times more detailed than before
- There will be functioning radars and infantry squads
- Simplified flight modeling of bomber aircraft allow massed raids
One of the most interesting features I took away is that there’s a regiment commander system which puts you in charge of your squadron managing supplies, personnel and aircraft. That should be interesting.
Screenshots and aircraft
In addition to this dump of information, we’ve also got a bunch of new screenshots (some of which are below) and we’ve got confirmation that the new title will feature eight aircraft as part of the release.
EDIT: Because it got confusing I’m listing the aircraft in an actual list now.
- F-51D
- F-80C
- F-86A
- MiG-15bis
- Yak-9P (probably)
- F4U-4 (probably)
- B-29 (AI probably)
- IL-10
B-29, F-51D, F-80C Shooting Star, and MiG-15bis are in the screenshots and the F-86A was mentioned in the marketing material. The B-29 I don’t expect it to be flyable and the simplified flight model is probably in reference to it to enable those larger formations. In prior materials we’ve also seen the F4U Corsair, Yak-9 (very likely a 9P model) and the IL-10 which brings us to eight total aircraft (including one AI which I don’t think is counting in their marketing materials) and leaves one more unknown type.
The base product could be expanded with Commonwealth, Chinese and additional US Navy aircraft as well so there are possibilities for content that stretches into the future.
Thoughts
My first though is: finally! We’ve known for a considerable amount of time that they were doing Korea but for whatever reason they elected to not announce the product until now.
The short trailer was fine but I don’t think it quite showed enough to grab people’s full attention outside of the current community. Hopefully a follow-on trailer will show the full scale and scope of the project. Large formations of B-29s with F-86 and MiG-15 battles going on around might help underscore the differences between this new Korea title and Great Battles.
Visually I expected to see this leap a bit further forward than it appears to have. Don’t get me wrong, I think the new physically based rendering looks really good and the overall presentation is reasonably solid but I think I’m going to have to see this in person on my own PC to truly get a feel for the visuals. Great Battles did manage to punch above its weight thanks to a very consistent approach to their art style and so Korea may manage to do something similar while still advancing the product.
The arguments I’ve seen online about if its a new engine or an old engine upgraded I think are mostly academic. The important bits are going to be if they can do those large formations, make their world feel more alive and real, and offer up a fun Korean war era combat flight sim experience. Upgraded damage systems, upgraded aircraft systems, and improved visuals may combine together for a great experience.
Time will tell too what the single and multiplayer experience is intended to be. And just to put it out there in the universe… I really hope to goodness that this sim does not go down the road that the original IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad did with unlocked equipment and aircraft. There’s no evidence that they are but I just want to make that one clear.
Cautiously optimistic that this will be a fun and somewhat unique entry into the combat flight sim pantheon!
You can read all about the new product on their new website and they also have the first blog post that fills in some additional information too.
Stormbirds 
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