First launched in November of 2001, the IL-2 Sturmovik series has turned 24-years old. The series has had a long history with plenty of ups and downs and so let’s take a brief moment to reflect back on the long history of this famous combat flight simulation.
A personal story shared by many
Going to start off with a little personal story here. IL-2 Sturmovik came out officially on November 18 of 2001. Developed by 1C: Maddox games and released by 1C and UbiSoft, I remember reading about its launch but initially dismissed it because of its Eastern Front setting. Something many western flight sim fans can probably relate to. It’s also something I’d regret later as this upstart of a WWII flight sim was a gem that drew in everyone who flew it. Ignoring it at the time, I thus set my sights on the upcoming Combat Flight Simulator 3 with its more familiar setting.
When CFS 3 came out the following year, it was panned by reviewers and many fans alike. The forums were awash in technical issues and features that weren’t working. It’d be another several months before I decided to give the IL-2 series a try. I was soon hooked and spent lots of time not just flying but learning about a whole new theatre.
The IL-2 demo really helped sell it putting me in the cockpit of a P-39N-1 in the mountains of the Kuban region. I was up and flying and having a blast learning how to get into this challenging, yet rewarding, simulator. I soon became obsessed flying offline campaigns and multiplayer scenarios alike.
I’ve read countless stories over the years from combat flight sim fans who had a similar trajectory with all of us landing ultimately on this one series.
Abridged history
I know many of you have similar stories coming into the series. With few options, WWII flight sim fans coming from CFS2 and 3, from European Air War and WWII online joined in on this still relatively unknown series. Its expanding scope helped drawn folks in too as IL-2 Forgotten Battles, released in 2003, added more familiar types to the mix like the Hurricane and the P-47 while continuing with its Eastern Front mix. Ace Expansion pack came soon after giving us our first Western Front taste with a P-51 Mustang, Normandy map, and tons of new Western Front assets. Next up it was Pacific Fighters, released in October of 2004, with the sim once again expanding its assets dramatically and adding several aircraft and maps in the Pacific Theatre.
The series wasn’t without its controversy and Pacific Fighters released amidst a legal challenge from Northrup-Grumman. After which, no further Grumman related aircraft were added to the sim. That cut the legs off many of the expected additions to the series that had been hoped for by fans.
Despite those challenges, the series did partially recover some momentum with the launch of IL-2 1946. This what-if focused title brought with it additional development, added even more aircraft from the WWII time period including some unique what-if or rarely used types (like the Dornier 335, Me 323 Komet, MiG-9, Yak-15 and many others).
Multiple generations later
We are, of course, now two generations removed from the original series.
Cliffs of Dover released in 2011 to much fanfare and then disappointment as bugs, performance problems and development issues caused the sim to run poorly. The series looked to be in serious trouble at that point and 1C: Maddox games departed the project by the fall of 2012. We know the story now how a group of modders kept the sim alive and ultimately formed into the group we now know as Team Fusion Simulations.
1C Game Studios would take over the series shortly around the time of the 1C: Maddox Games departure. That team would turn their Digital Nature engine, developed for Rise of Flight, to the next generation of IL-2 Sturmovik release. Battle of Stalingrad, the first in a series of Great Battles releases, had an early access release in 2013 that would ultimately lead to the sim coming out in October of 2014. Eleven-years later, we’re here having seen over a dozen major DLC releases and dozens more updates and releases.
The series again faces some headwinds with the world situation as it is and with renewed western and eastern tensions as a backdrop. Still, it looks like things will continue for the foreseeable future with Korea IL-2 set to bring the next generation of the series to sim PCs. We’ll have to see what the next chapter brings.
1C Game Studios has marked the release with a new IL-2 series website update and the launch of a new forums for the series.
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