Pre-Orders for Korea. IL2 Series are Now Open!

[Varibraun]

7 hours ago, Sunbather_ said:

Please make that a big announcement once you know. I won't pre-order before this is confirmed. I don't want yet another launcher, I also want the benefits of Steam (tracking playtime, quick access to discussion forums etc.), so a Steam key is a must-have for me.

I agree and am hoping this will be offered.  As a Founder in GB I have 3000+ hours on Steam, but made all of my purchases directly from the Website (Website Badges & Steam Play Time below).  So, I would really love to see a similar offering/link for Korea to become a Founder here too. 🤞

[CIA_Metabo]

On 11/28/2025 at 9:33 AM, LukeFF said:

Dear friends,  

We're glad to announce that our giant project is approaching its conclusion: the Early Access is scheduled for Spring 2026, and the official release for Q2 2026. Welcome to the new Korea. IL2 Series site: https://il2-korea.com

For our team, Korea is far more than just another project in the IL-2 series. It is an opportunity to bring to life one of the most intense, technologically pivotal, and yet often overlooked conflicts in history. The history we must remember. We must know the heroes, the aircraft, and the stories. That is the core of our passion for this project. We are not merely building a game; we are creating a digital museum dedicated to preserving and experiencing this incredible chapter of our past. 

Pre-orders are open, and the pre-order discount is at its greatest right now. As we move towards the release, the price will gradually increase to the full price. We also offer the Founders Edition, intended for flight sim enthusiasts who would like to support further development. It includes all pre-order content plus Year 1 DLC access, which will bring five additional aircraft and new gameplay features to be revealed later. 

Many questions.

[Aapje]

On 11/29/2025 at 11:30 AM, Aapje said:

@LukeFF

Can we get a statement whether:

1. the current pricing will remain the same until pre-release?
2. we will get a notification in time so people will know when the last chance is to buy at this pricing?

@LukeFF

Now that it's the work week, can you please answer this?

[Catch]

Nope. Nobody knows. Wait for the sale.

[SlR]

Дождалсь =))

Удачи и новых свершений (может быть Вьетнам увидим через пару лет) разработчикам и руководству создавшим и развивающим серию ИЛ2!

Взял набор основателя. 

[Avimimus]

24 minutes ago, Aapje said:

@LukeFF

Now that it's the work week, can you please answer this?

I've gathered up the questions, they've been passed to LukeFF, and then been passed to the team. There may be delays due to illness though!

[Avimimus]

1 minute ago, SlR said:

Дождалсь =))

Удачи и новых свершений (может быть Вьетнам увидим через пару лет) разработчикам и руководству создавшим и развивающим серию ИЛ2!

Взял набор основателя. 

They are doing the Pacific first. Vietnam would seem unlikely. The main issue is the complexity of avionics. I think developing one fighter from that era could take the same effort of developing six or more Korea era jets. We'd be talking something like only four aircraft in four years... whereas they could give us fifteen aircraft if they return to WWII. I'd find 1967-1973 a bit more feasible (many of the aircraft were export types and a bit older), but it would still have almost the same problem. Still, maybe someday eh? If the genre continued to grow and sales support larger teams?

[Aapje]

Just now, Avimimus said:

I've gathered up the questions, they've been passed to LukeFF, and then been passed to the team. There may be delays due to illness though!

Ok, thanks. I just think that it is very important to be clear on this, especially since Luke has been telling us that more information will come out, so a bunch of people may want to decide whether to buy once we get the maximum amount of information while still having the current pricing.

[Avimimus]

8 minutes ago, Aapje said:

Ok, thanks. I just think that it is very important to be clear on this, especially since Luke has been telling us that more information will come out, so a bunch of people may want to decide whether to buy once we get the maximum amount of information while still having the current pricing.

I agree it would be great to have the information. It might take a little while (people were away on the weekend, some people are sick) - we're definitely on it and have been taking notes and forwarding information.

[SlR]

11 минут назад, Avimimus сказал:

Сначала они отправятся в Тихий океан. Вьетнам кажется маловероятным. Основная проблема — сложность авионики. Я думаю, что разработка одного истребителя той эпохи могла бы потребовать тех же усилий, что и разработка шести или более самолетов корейской эпохи. Мы бы говорили примерно о четырех самолетах за четыре года... тогда как они могли бы дать нам пятнадцать самолетов, если бы вернулись во Вторую мировую войну. Я бы посчитал вариант 1967–1973 годов немного более осуществимым (многие самолеты были экспортного типа и немного старше), но проблема все равно осталась бы почти той же. Но, может быть, когда-нибудь, а? Если жанр продолжит расти, а продажи будут поддерживать более крупные команды?

Проекты сложные, но разработчики талантливые и полны жизненных сил, поэтому надеюсь Корея будет очень успешной и разработчики получат возможности работать с ещё большим бюджетом над более масштабными проектами. Возможно увидим Вьетнам с самолётами и вертолётами =)

Много ещё интересных сражений, было бы интересно увидеть первую мировую на новом движке и битвы в небе над тихим океаном.

Edited December 1, 2025 by SlR

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, SlR said:

The projects are complex, but the developers are talented and full of energy, so I hope Korea will be very successful and the developers will have the opportunity to work with even larger budgets on larger projects. Perhaps we'll even see Vietnam with planes and helicopters 😃

I'd rather see them stick with the gun-based planes. After the Pacific, there is still plenty to do (Battle of Britain, North Africa, Sicily, Battle of France, etc).

And they've been hinting that they want to try clickable cockpits again, and there are other things to improve. I'd rather see them perfect the early era, than make mediocre flight sims for a long period of history.

Edited December 1, 2025 by Aapje

[Horn]

Конечно я рад, что проект развивается,  появляются новые идеи. Но у меня большие сомнения, что мы увидим что то новое и перспективное в области графики. 

Говорят о новом движке и о новых деталях в области визуалки, где будет "взрыв" эмоций и крики восторга. Может быть?  Я всегда привык сравнивать производителей игр, т.к они позиционируют себя перспективными в том или ином направлении, привлекая тем самым потребителей. Для меня важны многие детали в игре, которая в практике становятся не просто игрой, а куда большим. Поэтому я буду сравнивать с MSFS 2024  и ИЛ - 2. Почему именно эти игры? Потому-что MSFS 2024 -  это правда прорыв в графике, это визуалка. Что предложит группа этого проекта? Я думаю "СКАЧКА" не будет. Какой ответ будет на мои мысли- думаю стандартными со смесью отдельных участников обсуждения. Единственное, что я хочу пожелать группе проекта - удачи и успехов в реализации своих планов

[AlexandreCosta]

8 minutes ago, Horn said:

Конечно я рад, что проект развивается,  появляются новые идеи. Но у меня большие сомнения, что мы увидим что то новое и перспективное в области графики. 

Говорят о новом движке и о новых деталях в области визуалки, где будет "взрыв" эмоций и крики восторга. Может быть?  Я всегда привык сравнивать производителей игр, т.к они позиционируют себя перспективными в том или ином направлении, привлекая тем самым потребителей. Для меня важны многие детали в игре, которая в практике становятся не просто игрой, а куда большим. Поэтому я буду сравнивать с MSFS 2024  и ИЛ - 2. Почему именно эти игры? Потому-что MSFS 2024 -  это правда прорыв в графике, это визуалка. Что предложит группа этого проекта? Я думаю "СКАЧКА" не будет. Какой ответ будет на мои мысли- думаю стандартными со смесью отдельных участников обсуждения. Единственное, что я хочу пожелать группе проекта - удачи и успехов в реализации своих планов

MSFS 2024 was not a huge graphic improvement in my opinion. It is beautiful. But the big improvement was with MSFS 2020. Comparing both I don't see a graphic revolution on 2024 version.

[Rapidus]

Guys, off-topic for MSFS, please keep the conversation on topic. 

[Avimimus]

I'll make an exception in this case, but generally speaking, discussing other sims belongs in the other 'chit-chat' subforums:

https://forum.il2-series.com/forum/23-chit-chat/

 

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, Horn said:

But I seriously doubt we'll see anything new and promising in the graphics field.

I think that you need to be realistic and accept that evolution is what you can normally expect from new games, not revolution.

Don't forget that the GB engine is 12 years old. They've kept improving things during the lifespan of that engine, and the last planes look much nicer than the earliest planes they released for GB, and the clouds and other things did improve along the way. However, the GB engine has reached a point where the old technology is making it very hard to make new steps. GB modules will never become prettier than today or have significant new features, while I expect the Korea module to benefit from improvements that are enabled by the new technology in the engine. So while GB will never be better than what you see today, Korea will never be worse than what you will see at launch. An important difference.

Quote

Because MSFS 2024 is a true breakthrough in graphics, in terms of visuals.

I think that you are comparing apples with oranges. MSFS has chosen to generate an entire world from satellite pictures, which has some very big benefits, like being able to model the entire world, but also very large downsides, like not being usable for a historic maps and creating a lot of errors, or things that look nice, but aren't actually accurate (like generating a generic building that doesn't look at all like the real building).

There is a reason why they model parts of the world by hand, and those look way better than the autogenerated stuff. But that manual modelling is not revolutionary. And they completely ignore combat and only focus on the flying. So again, not a fair comparison with IL-2, that does things that MSFS does not even attempt (and vice versa).

Quote

I don't think there will be a "LEAP."

That depends on how you look at it. I think that the new time skip by itself will much improve the game for many players. Is it revolutionary? No, games in the past had it. Will it make the game a lot more fun with a lot more action? Probably.

And they have shown and talked about many things that each promise to improve on GB. To me it looks that all of that combined will be a huge improvement over GB. If you consider the GB modules to be good enough to buy, then unless they mess something up, Korea is a great buy, right? The current pre-order price for Odessa and Leningrad is $10 less than the current pre-order price for Korea. I know which one I consider better value at this price (again, assuming that they don't mess up).

[Shinobimono]

4 минуты назад, Aapje сказал:

Don't forget that the GB engine is 12 years old.

Isn't it upgraded RoF engine? If so, it's way older. But we will see.

If trees will look like real things and not that outdated trash it'll be a big leap, imo.

[Aapje]

2 minutes ago, Shinobimono said:

Isn't it upgraded RoF engine? If so, it's way older. But we will see.

Korea is not built from scratch either. Truly starting over from scratch is a huge effort, and you typically lose a lot of features if that is done, since it is not possible to redo decades worth of development in a few years. Evolution means that is it much more likely that you will see little regression and most changes will be actual improvements.

Supposedly they replaced and rebuilt more than for the RoF -> GB transition, so let's hope that effort pays off.

PS. Since according to War and Peace all smart Russians know French 😉 :  plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

[tattywelshie]

Whilst I’m excited for this, I won’t be going anywhere near pre ordering until I see some info on changes and improvements to the AI, I’m slightly worried to say the least that we’ve not really had any info whatsoever on this aspect of the game. 

[sevenless]

4 minutes ago, tattywelshie said:

Whilst I’m excited for this, I won’t be going anywhere near pre ordering until I see some info on changes and improvements to the AI, I’m slightly worried to say the least that we’ve not really had any info whatsoever on this aspect of the game. 

If they are smart, they release a demo version. Lets see.

[tattywelshie]

1 hour ago, sevenless said:

If they are smart, they release a demo version. Lets see.

Did they release a demo of BoX? As I say, I’m sure there are quite a few on here who are a tad worried about the lack of any AI related news, both friendly and enemy. 

[sevenless]

10 minutes ago, tattywelshie said:

Did they release a demo of BoX? As I say, I’m sure there are quite a few on here who are a tad worried about the lack of any AI related news, both friendly and enemy. 

Nope. They relied entirely on their reputation back then when they released BoS in 2013.

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, tattywelshie said:

Whilst I’m excited for this, I won’t be going anywhere near pre ordering until I see some info on changes and improvements to the AI, I’m slightly worried to say the least that we’ve not really had any info whatsoever on this aspect of the game. 

We have had a video or two on changes to the AI in our dev brief series.

[Anivan]

Товарищи всем привет, вот такой вопросик. Имею ДКС и Вертолеты 3 наших верта и Чинук, имею РУС и Педали от ВКБ , и РОШ для Вертолетов от Вирпил , РУД нет к сожалению , как думаете смогу приколхозить РОШ заместо РУД).

[Avimimus]

6 minutes ago, Anivan said:

Товарищи всем привет, вот такой вопросик. Имею ДКС и Вертолеты 3 наших верта и Чинук, имею РУС и Педали от ВКБ , и РОШ для Вертолетов от Вирпил , РУД нет к сожалению , как думаете смогу приколхозить РОШ заместо РУД).

That should be fine. Especially if the collective can have some resistance. Usually you'll have the throttle set to either cruise or maximum power settings - so it won't be adjusted that much in these early jets.