Pacific Fighters, the immensely popular add-on for IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles, came out in October of 2004. Since then we’ve had a very long drought of serious combat flight sim content for Pacific WWII. Until now anyways! Now we have something of a confluence happening with three sims all tackling the same theatre of operations and it looks like Eagle Dynamics and DCS World are going to be the first to arrive. It’s a new era but will it manage to succeed and will it avoid some of the pitfalls of the last time around? Let’s discuss.
The right mix of content and availability
Eagle Dynamics and at least one third party, Magnitude-3, are about to launch content for a whole new theatre of operations for DCS World. The Pacific Theatre of WWII has not been tackled by this sim previously and it hasn’t been tackled by any serious combat flight simulator for over 20-years.
Eagle Dynamics and Magnitude 3 appear to be first to the punch with 1C Game Studios IL-2 Korea follow-up in the Pacific still years away and Combat Pilot in its extremely encouraging but still formative stages. A long term drought is sure to draw in interested players. But will they have what folks are looking for?
The biggest danger for DCS’ Pacific Theatre foray is the same one that the company faced with their European WWII content. Simply put: Not enough content and content that wasn’t focused enough to make it enjoyable. They managed to inherit much of the mess but when it comes down to it, it still ended up being a problem. What do I mean?
The biggest issue, for me, with DCS WWII content was the lack of focus. The aircraft set featured 1945 aircraft like the Fw190D-9 and Bf109K-4 and pitted them against late 1943 and early 1944 Spitfire IX and mid 1944 P-51D. In an era where even 6-months marked a difference in performance, the mix-up was further exacerbated by two WWII European maps both focused on Normandy and the Channel. No attempt doing Market Garden/Bodenplatte era that their aircraft set supported. It was confusing and disjointed and it made it difficult for historical scenarios and difficult to balance multiplayer.
Yes, this was initially because Eagle Dynamics took on a partially successful Kickstarter campaign. But after that it continued to remain a problem and mitigation efforts – like doing a Low-Countries map instead of the Channel map would have helped.
Fortunately, the aircraft set did fill out a little at least with the DCS: Mosquito, P-47 and FW190A-8 helping to make things at least a little more timely. Ultimately, no Bf109G-6 arrived (the most important variant for Normandy) and a limited number of AI aircraft arrived to support the set. Even there, I was slightly baffled by some of the decisions. A Ju88 was added but it wasn’t the C-6 variant used over the Normandy beaches. Instead they offered relatively rare torpedo modification instead with no provisions for conventional bombs which had the effect of limiting its value.
Put simply, the aircraft set was scattered making historical scenarios difficult and multiplayer balancing even harder. For their WWII Pacific foray to succeed where the European one didn’t, it’s going to need to be a lot more focused.
All about the Marianas
It looks like Eagle Dynamics have picked the Marianas campaign as their focal point and I really hope beyond hope that they are able to stay focused on this point in time and really build it out into something interesting.
It’s a challenging point in time to represent with the US Navy largely achieving supremacy during the peak point in the battle. In the realm of simulated scenarios, however, its possible to recreate history with slightly different combinations. The Japanese brought a full compliment of modern naval aircraft to the battle but tactics, training and overall strategy ended up in a significant defeat. It could still be quite interesting with different tactics to see a more even battle. Good for multiplayer while providing a rich set of options for single player folks too.
Right now we know that there are plans for just two flyable modules: the F4U-1D from Magnitude 3 and the F6F Hellcat from Eagle Dynamics.
We’ve also seen an A6M5 Zero teased and a B6N “Jill” torpedo bomber in the works. Is a flyable A6M5 planned? It would need to be for any sort of multiplayer competitive scene to emerge. Would a flyable B6N at DCS World levels even be possible? That’s more unlikely with Japanese aircraft resources proving to be exceedingly difficult to find and DCS players tending to demand the highest levels of simulator fidelity.
Other types would need to be added too. The TBM Avenger, D4Y “Judy,” SB2C Helldiver, and other types would fill out the aircraft set for this time period staying focused on this mid 1944 time period. The P-47, already with us, has a place here too with its use in the Marianas campaign being key in the drive north through Saipan though it would find little in the way of air combat and more in close air support.
I’m really hoping for a cohesive plan for content going forward. It does look like maybe there is one and I am hopeful but at the same time I’m looking to be convinced.
The theatre could be expanded with the free Marianas WWII map being used as a focal point to get people in and future payware maps perhaps expanding to encompass the Okinawan campaign building on the aircraft and assets already in place. The worst thing they could do would be to make a big jump in time and do Midway, the Solomons, Guadalcanal or New Guinea where they don’t have assets or aircraft. Building up a core set of assets that is self reinforcing will be essential.
Paying for it all
There’s an elephant in the room I haven’t addressed yet.
We know there are aircraft, tanks, and other assets planned for DCS World’s foray into the Pacific theatre. It seems unlikely to me, given past performances, that the company will offer up all of this content without some sort of asset pack.
Time and resources spent on aircraft, tanks, and other features are difficult to justify to any bean counter to give away free of charge. They are giving Marianas away and it looks like many of the vehicles created by Magnitude-3 will be part of the core DCS experience – free of charge. But will the rest of the assets be?
You may recall that the WWII asset pack ended up being one of the most controversial decisions and a key sticking point for many of the loudest voices in the community. It created compatibility concerns and it essentially mandated that players buy a map, an asset pack and at least one aircraft module to get in. An expensive proposition.
This time around, at least one map is going to be free and that may make a huge difference. Will there be just module costs or will an asset pack emerge here as well? I’m not sure how it would be received in 2025 versus when the first one did ten years ago but I suspect it would be a point of contention once again.
Final thoughts
There’s certainly a lot of fun to potentially be had here. After a lengthy multi-decade long drought of Pacific WWII content, it looks like we’re about to emerge into an era where there will be a potential for abundance in the area. That’s certainly going to be interesting and even maybe a little confusing for purchasers but that seems to be how things are going right now.
Much to my surprise, DCS World seems to be first to the punch and that may help give them an early start. How well this goes will depend on how rapidly they can make content available, how engaging and focused the content is, and how cohesive the plan is over the next 3-5 years. If they get diverted and do other things than their focus area, it may end up diluting the experience and making scenarios and multiplayer complicated.
But if they can jump through the hoops and stick the carrier landing, it may well be a very engaging experience.
Stormbirds 
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