Korea. IL-2 Series Release Info

[LukeFF]

Dear friends,

First of all, we want to sincerely thank everyone who is taking part in the ongoing beta testing. The time, effort, and passion you invest in testing the game mean a great deal to our entire team. Every report, comment, suggestion, and discussion is incredibly valuable to us, and we truly appreciate how actively the community continues to participate throughout the beta.

Throughout the beta, we have been receiving a large amount of thoughtful, detailed feedback from players around the world. Many of you are taking the time not only to report issues but also to share ideas, point out areas for improvement, and tell us what you enjoy most. Your involvement helps us better understand the experience from the players’ perspective and gives us clear direction on what we can improve, adjust, and polish before release.

We want you to know that your contribution is not being overlooked. The beta stage is extremely important for us, and the feedback we are receiving is already having a significant impact on our plans and priorities moving forward. Community support and honest feedback are helping us shape the game into something stronger and more enjoyable for everyone.

After careful consideration, we’ve made the difficult decision to delay the release of Korea. IL-2 Series. The good news is that the release will take place very soon – on August 4, 2026.

We understand that waiting a little longer may be disappointing, and we truly appreciate your patience and understanding. Please know that this decision wasn’t made lightly. However, we strongly believe that it will allow us to polish core gameplay, fix critical bugs, improve performance, and deliver a better, more complete, and more enjoyable experience for everyone at launch.

At the same time, we understand how strongly many of you want to start playing Korea and experience the game for yourselves. For that reason, we are preparing to open Early Access on June 25, 2026, allowing players to begin exploring the game while we continue working on its full release.

Early Access will not represent the final version of the game, but it will already offer a meaningful first experience with Korea, its aircraft, core systems, missions, and multiplayer features.

What will be available to the players at the start of Early Access:

Museum: Players will be able to explore aircraft and other in-game objects, learn about their history and characteristics, view cockpit equipment diagrams, aircraft variants, paint schemes, piloting tips, animations, sounds, and use quick “FLY NOW” access with a selected aircraft.

Single Missions: A selected set of story missions with briefings will be available, based on existing game content and pre-configured scenarios involving in-game AI.

Mission Planner: The Mission Planner will include three basic mission types at the start of Early Access: Free Flight, Duel, and Dogfight.

Multiplayer: Multiplayer will include a large Team Death Match mission and several official 24/7 servers with different difficulty settings. Players will also be able to host their own Dogfight and Cooperative servers directly in-game or via the dedicated server application.

Exams: For four of the eight aircraft, four special exam missions will be available, during which the player receives the first significant challenge to their skills. For the other four aircraft, such missions will be made available upon release. 

Settings and Controls: We are preparing a more accessible setup experience, including detailed explanations of game options, a device-mapping wizard for unrecognized controllers, and more than 70 control-mapping templates with layout diagrams for different devices.

Graphics and Performance Options: Supported technologies will include FSR, DLSS, OpenVR, OpenXR, Indirect Ray Tracing lighting, and other available options.

During Early Access, we will continue to improve, expand, and polish the game in line with our development plan and community feedback. Our goal is to let players begin their journey with Korea while we keep working toward the full release.

We’ll be sharing more development updates and behind-the-scenes looks between now and the new release date.

Thank you once again for your incredible support, enthusiasm, and dedication. Your feedback and passion play a huge role in helping us make the flight sim of our dreams, and we are very grateful to have such an engaged community by our side.

Sincerely yours,
IL-2 development team
 

[Jade_Monkey]

For the sake of clarity, what is NOT included in early access? other than career, i cannot make out what is being left out:

• Career
• Full Mission Editor?
• Ability to create/play scripted campaigns?

[BladeMeister]

And there was much Knashing of teeth! Lol it's not the first time a release date has been pushed back. 

 

S!Blade<><

[kodamcity]

Can you tell me which aircraft we can fly in Early Access? It would be great if we could fly all eight types of aircraft.

 

 

 

 

[LukeFF]

All 8 aircraft will be flyable.

[Lofte]

4 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Dear friends

Задерживайте хоть на год. Денег на новый компьютер всё равно нет)

[AndreiTomescu]

from 25 june to 4 aug it's just a month. the content provided in early access wil be quite enough to fill that time, imho, providing the game will run fine. 

[Avimimus]

3 hours ago, Jade_Monkey said:

For the sake of clarity, what is NOT included in early access? other than career, i cannot make out what is being left out:

• Career
• Full Mission Editor?
• Ability to create/play scripted campaigns?

The career mode was left out of the announcement - so I'm guessing it will come after the 25th. I also suspect that the Mission Planner will be expanded over time.

As for scripted campaigns and full-mission builder: That is a good question. I know that in the recent interview the developers seemed to imply that they planned to support scripted campaigns but they wanted to add additional features (e.g. voice generation from text) to support the campaign builders first. So I have no idea.

[Dash,Polder]

Hey Luke, will you guys be adding an aircraft specific forum with individual sub forms for each new air frame type?   Be nice to gather all the new impressions, weapons discussion, operational, and general handling tips for each specific plane in one dedicated spot. 

[Aapje]

Not really surprising given the comments by Han about all the bugfixing needed. The more committed players will get the game in time anyway, but it's better that it is a solid game for the official release, so less forgiving gamers get a good experience right away.

[GiftGruen]

Patiently waiting.

Better to take some time and early access will enable first insights. I think we should sll be okay with this.

It‘s anyway summer and soccer WM time 😉

[FuriousMeow]

I'm still learning aircraft in Great Battles...

[T24_Martin]

I prefer a finished product. So take your time and don't rush. I am sure it will be great!

 

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, Dash,Polder said:

Hey Luke, will you guys be adding an aircraft specific forum with individual sub forms for each new air frame type?   Be nice to gather all the new impressions, weapons discussion, operational, and general handling tips for each specific plane in one dedicated spot. 

Not sure about that right now.

[MADLOU]

I guess Im a dunce because I always assumed the June 26 date was an Early Access date. 😐

[AndreiTomescu]

What i'm a bit concerned of, to take the skeletons out of the closet (not my cockpit closet 🙂 ), is the indiscriminate "critical spirit" /hate/ "free" comments found on word wide platforms. Like steam, Google maps, etc

This could easily ruin sales, and that would affect us all, slowing and blocking further development.

It's too easy to kill a baby mocking bird. Especially in this times, when a product is seen through many mirrors, not actually connected to the game quality itself. You know what I mean. See the Hogwarts Legacy game, and how some tried (fortunately failed) to kill it.

In this regard I salute the decisions to:

- avoid early access on gaming platform

- delay official release until they feel it's ready.

@LukeFF:Would feedback from non beta testers early access users would help? If yes, is there an organised place for that?

[Blitzen]

Just my luck,it will appear at the same time the new flyable twins will appeat in Great Battles!

[CatteMoto]

I know there are expectations built around specific dates but I hope you take as long as necessary to deliver the best possible product at launch. Whiners are often louder than those waiting for a gem to be polished. 

 

There are certainly deficiencies with IL-2, but the worst part of the series is seeing the same flaccid screeds in comments about things that don't matter or are incomparably better than any alternative options. I can't imagine it's good for business either

 

 

[AndreiTomescu]

Unfortunately I can't place more "upvotes" for @CatteMoto  's statement from above. So..... upvote.

[IckyAtlas]

On 6/12/2026 at 4:14 PM, Blitzen said:

Just my luck,it will appear at the same time the new flyable twins will appeat in Great Battles!

Hope that they release the Flyable B25 with in the skin list at least a Soviet skin. That would be perfect for my Kuban campaign work.

[Jaegermeister]

On 6/12/2026 at 1:10 AM, AndreiTomescu said:

@LukeFF:Would feedback from non beta testers early access users would help? If yes, is there an organised place for that?

I'm sure there will be plenty of feedback whether it's helpful or not, LOL.

[kodamcity]

Could you let me know the disk installation size for the Early Access version? I am also curious if the full version will be larger. Additionally, will the game run smoothly on an HDD instead of an SSD?

[AndreiTomescu]

57 minutes ago, kodamcity said:

will the game run smoothly on an HDD instead of an SSD

nope, i really doubt that,' cause it doesn't load full onto RAM, no matter your size. of RAM. 

 

58 minutes ago, kodamcity said:

disk installation size for the Early Access version

dunno , the full version will start with a 35 GB min , says Steam (i doubt will be that small) and will expand way above 120 GB (on the official store 120gb are required) . My current GB folder has 113 GB. 

So i guess having above 120GB available on SSD would be appropriate. Any sacrifice is worth it, kodamcity, you'll be flying HOME !! 😍

Can't wait for you to give us feedback on the cities and geography.

[kodamcity]

21 hours ago, AndreiTomescu said:

nope, i really doubt that,' cause it doesn't load full onto RAM, no matter your size. of RAM. 

 

dunno , the full version will start with a 35 GB min , says Steam (i doubt will be that small) and will expand way above 120 GB (on the official store 120gb are required) . My current GB folder has 113 GB. 

So i guess having above 120GB available on SSD would be appropriate. Any sacrifice is worth it, kodamcity, you'll be flying HOME !! 😍

Can't wait for you to give us feedback on the cities and geography.

Thanks for the information. It looks like the file size will increase further once World War II DLCs, such as the Pacific DLC, are released in the future. It seems I will need to secure a lot of disk space to play the GB series and the Korea series. 💀

 

[AndreiTomescu]

I have a ssd for win and games, and a large hdd for everything else.