For flight sim fans: 777 Studios working on next IL-2 Sturmovik

a IL-2 Sturmovik

Wow. The studio that pulled off the awesome and realistic (though punishingly unforgiving) WWI flight sim Rise of Flight is going to be working on the next IL-2 Sturmovik game. With the excellent quality that 777 delivered, combined with the more forgiving (objective) and more enthralling (purely subjective) combat of WWII, this could be one hell of a good flight sim. I definitely hold 777 Studios in higher regard than 1C after the fiasco that was Cliffs of Dover. Rise of Flight looked great and ran smoothly even on a laptop with a 540M. Cliffs of Dover didn't run well on ANYTHING and was laden with bugs.

777 Studios also had a much better business model with Rise of Flight. IL-2 cost $60 up-front but had ten bazillion planes to fly. Additional patches with more planes and campaigns and bug-fixes were distributed for free. It's a high cost of entry and there's no financial reason to keep supporting the game...which 1C eventually chose not to do with Cliffs of Dover. Rise of Flight was free-to-play with one campaign and two planes, and you purchased campaigns and planes individually from their store, allowing people to get as much or as little as they wanted. New planes continue to be released--very well-rendered and modeled--because there's a financial incentive for 777 Studios to keep releasing high-quality content.

 

Wish I had more time to get back into flight sims. I really miss it. I love it. IL-2 was perfect balance of sim and fun. Still great fun to fly today. Haven't spent much time in Rise of Flight though.

 

With that name studio has, I've expected they developed 3rd party planes for FSX.
And I would disagree on that business model. I much prefer to pay more and thus getting more (provided game isn't crawling with bugs or they fix 'em). I still waiting to see a better combo than IL-2 Forgotten Battles + Aces + Pearl Harbor (had a different name though, don't remember). Best bang for the buck. You had a war theater spreading from Europe to Pacific.
And if I remember correct, FB and it's addons were supported very well. Probably due to a vast number of addons it had.
With that "Pay 2 Win" model you have two crappy planes from start and the rest of them for a convenient price of 14.99$. If you are not stupid and can figure out first grade math, buying a few planes won't make sense financially than buying a normal product.
And why 777 Studios will develop next IL-2? First ones were developed by Maddox Games. But I think they got merged or something. Does IL-2 brand/title/whatever belong to Ubi?

 

Yeah, read this a couple weeks ago... I really enjoy Rise of Flight, but man o man was Cliffs of Dover a steamy turd or what... Here's hoping they can save the franchise. I'll give them a shot just out of respect for RoF and how fantastic IL2 was round one. 1946 is still one of the best sims out there IMHO.

And to 777's credit, they have released some great addons regularly over the years, just recently introducing flying boats. I'm looking forward to what they come up with.

 

Holy cow dude lay off the insults here.

If you had bought IL-2, IL-2 Forgotten Battles, and Pacific Fighters all when they were new, you'd have paid $180. With a bulk discount, single-seat aircraft in Rise of Flight cost less than $5 each.

And that "if it's bug-free" for IL-2 became an increasingly-big "if" as time went on. Remember the patch where they inadvertently broke the P-47, where a single hit to its wing would cause it to burst into flame? Did you ever notice that AI pilots in F4F Wildcats will spiral into the water in EVERY turning dogfight...their AI doesn't include a "stay above the water" rule? How about the fact that they never got around to modeling torpedo bombers in a Pacific Theater flight sim? They had no incentive to improve the product after they'd made the initial sale, so particularly in the later years, they didn't. Heck, I think they cut off all support for Cliffs of Dover after only about a year, even though they hadn't fixed most (any) of the bugs by then.

 

Sorry man, I was using words "stupid" and "you" in general, not aimed at you or anyone else here. But I'm not sure games back "then" cost 60$ a pop too. Well OK, maybe with inflation adjustment it would be somewhere close. I got them actually way cheaper, bought all three when I was visiting Russia, so they were like 5 bucks for a new game .
I don't remember all those bugs. But to be hones, never had time to notice actually, because of the intensity in the air.

And unfortunately I read the article after I posted my first message.
So it won't be just 777 Studios creating new IL-2, they will be co-developing with 1C. I see the reason 1C would want to do it. Actually this sort of partnership could be great for both companies.
Thing that buggers me, Stalingrad battle, again? I mean, besides Stalingrad there were other great (as in huge/significant) battles on the Eastern Front. I just remember those magnificent dogfights I had over the city of Leningrad. They had some of the landmarks modeled and it looked quite breathtaking. With all that history on the ground and all those ugly dogfights and bombings in the air.
But I suppose they could do something like Tripwire did with RO2. Make an initial game about Stalingrad, but then add maps from other areas as well.