1CGS Brief Room Episode 4 talks about Project Korea

2–3 minutes

We’ve got some new information about the IL-2 Korea project coming to us from the folks at 1CGS. Daniil Tuseyev and studio director Albert Zhiltsov talk about the project and answer some questions. Let’s have a look!

New ‘Brief Room’ episode

A new 45-minute long video is devoted to all things IL-2 series with a special focus on IL-2 Korea. There are some discussions on why it took so long to announce the product, why they chose Korea over something else, and what they are doing with the technology to necessitate a new product.

I’ve taken some notes here that you may find helpful in providing a quick summary. For the whole thing I encourage you to listen in for yourself.

Notes:

  • The team took a vote in the office and the decision came down to a few options including the Pacific and Korea. Pacific required technologies they weren’t confident on and so they decided on doing Korea.
  • The developers are fascinated by the clash of the end of piston engine and the jet era.
  • They say that the new engine will have better and more accurate technologies (physics and flight models) for simulating jet aircraft and that with IL-2 Great Battles they had to make adjustments to get the performance right.
  • The full size of the map is 500x500km with a flying zone of 440x440km. The southern part ends just south of Seoul and the northern edge extends to where several Chinese airfields are located. MiG alley will be on the map.
  • Korea is the start of a new stage, a new series of IL-2 games that can expand into other battles.
  • The inclusion of the IL-10 in Korea they feel is a kind of homage to the original IL-2 series.
  • They have been creating aircraft and scenery from scratch with higher details and PBR techniques to make the aircraft look as visually accurate as possible
  • The new engine uses DX12 and includes PBR (physically based rendering) which is a completely different texturing style from before. This is part of the reason as to why they are doing a new series because going back and redoing all old models would take too long to do.
  • Everything in the sim, including trees, buildings and vehicles will use PBR textures.
  • Pilot career mode is still considered the main game mode and won’t disappear. They say it will be enhanced in the new sim and that they are interested in adding in the career of a commander of a squadron as part of the experience.
  • They have decided against doing a dynamic campaign system.
  • They also emphasize that the Great Battles series with its extensive catalogue of aircraft will not disappear and that new content is still coming to it.

18 responses to “1CGS Brief Room Episode 4 talks about Project Korea”

  1. J Avatar
    J

    From what information has been given do you think that they will go the Pacific after Korea or more likely go somewhere else like Italy or North Africa, or focus on the Eastern or Western Front of WWII? Do you think that this new game could even handle the Vietnam War?

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    1. Stewmanji Avatar
      Stewmanji

      I don’t want to speak from Shamrock but in a previous video they hinted at the Pacific theater being a goal after Korea. That said, with both Combat Pilot and DCS developing in that theater, I’m not sure it makes sense for them to join the fray (even though I would love it).

      Maybe we’ll see them add carriers to Korea first and see where the tech takes them?

      I would absolutely love to see them go for Vietnam though…I think a “medium” fidelity cold war or modern sim would be a huge success.

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      1. oesau Avatar
        oesau

        yeah I was thinking about Vietnam as well albeit if they were they would def be needing to make some big changes in the engine to support it (I think I remember they said they were introducing ground radar which could be a precursor to SAM and radar directed AA) – it would be like Strike Fighters (by Third Wire). I Remember flying around in the F-105 in that game/sim and just enjoying the simplicity of it all.

        Pacific – agree Stemanji, if they developed carriers for Korea (which I really hope they do) the Pacific could be the next stop albeit they have said they didn’t at this stage want to develop a Pacific theater of ops. I imagine going in the Pacific direction would add some friction to the combat pilot team (though lets face it – CP will be out long before IL2 makes any inroads post Korea)

        Liked by 2 people

  2. Disgruntled man Avatar
    Disgruntled man

    PBR is a normal part of games nowadays. NOT having PBR is uncommon. Has been for at least 10 years or so. For the life of me I will never understand why flight simmers rip their cocks off over PBR. Please, lets all together stop bringing attention to it so devs will stop using something that is a very common practice as a marketing point. It’s like saying “our software includes code!”

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      It is pretty common yes. But it has not been a part of the IL-2 Great Battles series. They’ve done a bunch of tricks to try and keep up without it but it sounds like they’ve done a pretty extensive overhaul of their lighting scheme. PBR was mentioned today but ray tracing (maybe like MSFS’ new shadows?) has also been mentioned.

      They tend to meander a bit so it’s hard to know exactly what they are driving at.

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      1. CAP Avatar
        CAP

        A pilot career mode where you’re managing a squadron, it’s logistics and personnel, but it isn’t dynamic? Okay.

        So what we’re getting is an upgraded and or enhanced version of the current BoX career mode? If so, that works for me. I’m actually doing an iron-man run right now in the Stalingrad theater having started in Moscow and I’m actually enjoying it.

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      2. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
        ShamrockOneFive

        Not sure if this is directed at me but yes we’re getting an upgraded version of what we have. And that’s a good thing in my estimation too.

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      3. CAP Avatar
        CAP

        Yeah Sham, my query/statement was directed at you. I was just more of less looking for a confirmation with regards to the campaign being similar to what we have now. And I have it.

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    2. Unknown Avatar
      Unknown

      I’m afraid the whole Russian combat flysim world, once leading, is become very conservative, using DX11 while DX12 was around, the late introduction of 64bit or a multicore game engine, that’s commonly 10y in other games.

      For the rest it all looks like a RoF to BoS step, a bit tricky to buy, because the game is now in the end phase.

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  3. poochography Avatar
    poochography

    It’s a real shame there won’t be any sort of dynamic career mode, it would have been a great selling point IMO. I appreciate there’s a lot of work in it, I mean, didn’t the original IL2 have a dynamic career mode?

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      There’s a lot of times where “dynamic campaign” has been used a tagline but the actual “dynamicness” of said campaign varies significantly. Falcon 4 is still the gold standard with a theatre scale order of battle, asset tracking and target tracking. Destroy a bridge and its destroyed the next mission for example.

      What IL-2 Forgotten Battles had was no more dynamic than the current Career system. The dynamic layer was mostly in what assets your own squadron had which we still have and which they appear set to improve upon in Korea.

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      1. Aapje Avatar
        Aapje

        A true dynamic campaign would detract from the historic accuracy, so it wouldn’t really fit in with the attempts at historic accuracy. I personally wish for them to to have more units on the map and more randomness, so missions feel less like they are set up for you personally, but more like a real war. So with targets of opportunity, sometimes faulty intelligence (so targets may not be there), etc.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Unknown Avatar
        Unknown

        But I think that would make the game even more immersive. Because with that dynamic campaign mode you could make the difference on the Battlefield. Think in this case Artificial Intelligence would be helpful to do the calculations, downside it’s needs permanent internet in SP, for doing the calculations. Think the same Artificial Intelligence could also be used for the entire enemy planes, a weak spot for most of the combat fly sims SP.

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  4. wallynuff Avatar
    wallynuff

    ‘The team took a vote in the office and the decision came down to a few options including the Pacific and Korea. Pacific required technologies they weren’t confident on and so they decided on doing Korea.’

    So they are not sure if they could do the Pacific – (presumably because the ‘required technologies’ are the aircraft carriers and improved water physics, what else could it be?) – with this new ‘improved’ engine that bears so little relation to the one in GB that nothing can be ported over. So will there ever be carriers added to ‘Korea’? It doesn’t look promising.

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      It’s definitely based on the Great Battles engine. They’ve said as much in the materials that were posted. But it is also an evolution of it and they’d have to redo any assets that go in (they recreated the P-51/F-51 for example).

      As for the technologies that they are talking about, it’s unclear. It could be carriers. I don’t think it’s water physics (Rise of Flight had very good water physics and so does Great Battles). It may be not being able to do massed AA fire from ships well enough or something else. I’m hesitant to guess or project.

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      1. Dimitri Avatar
        Dimitri

        I think the root of it is that AI is very difficult to code and few can actually get it right (especially small fligh sim teams, if even AAA studios struggle).

        The core of a good dynamic campaign is a good AI.

        I will choose a quality “scripted” campaign any day, over a boring dynamic one with weird and unrealistic behaviors..

        The gold standard for flight sim dynamic campaigns are still Falcon and Enemy Engaged Hokum/Commanche. But games today are also a lot more complex today, than they were back then, with lots more variables and things to go wrong.

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      2. wallynuff Avatar
        wallynuff

        Sorry if I was a bit vague. By ‘water physics’ I meant that water that kills you as soon as you touch it and no airborne torpedoes that would work in it. There’s definitely something lacking with the Il-2 GB water that has never been solved and I’m afraid that it might still be there. Cheers.

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      3. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
        ShamrockOneFive

        I don’t see that as a serious issue. They just haven’t given it much time.

        Their physics for their RoF flying boats are pretty good!

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