Korea Flight Sim Declares War on Eternal Early Access

1 hour ago 2

Published Jun 13, 2026, 8:43 AM EDT

Jaime Tugayev is the News Editor at DualShockers, where he covers gaming news, reviews, features, guides, and major industry updates. He has been writing professionally since 2013 and covering games since 2015, with a focus on FPS games, tactical shooters, strategy titles, JRPGs, and PC and console gaming.

His work often covers games and franchises such as Escape From Tarkov, Gray Zone Warfare, Battlefield, ARC Raiders, Arma, STALKER 2, and Six Days in Fallujah. Before joining DualShockers, Jaime contributed to IndieGameCulture and Aviator Insider. He also holds a Master’s Degree in Developmental Psychology from the University of Coimbra.

Ah, early access. It's a necessary evil, they say. Without it, some smaller developers wouldn't be able to commit to more ambitious projects, as funding often dries up before things are 100% polished. Plus, the community gets some input over the final version.

The logic behind early access releases is sound, but it has also been much maligned by cases where what should have been a short period of open beta testing becomes the de facto endgame for multiple years. My dearest Escape From Tarkov is a prime example of how bad this can get, with eight whole years spent in early access.

It looks like the developers behind the upcoming flight simulator Il-2 Korea have gotten the memo, as the studio has announced its early access period has a clear end in sight, even before it started.

Il-2 Korea Early Access Details: Start, End, and What's In It

About two weeks ago, I had written about how Il-2 Korea finally had a release date. The new flight simulator by 1CGS, of Rise of Flight and Il-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles fame, enters early access on June 25. The date is of particular significance for a flight simulator set in the Korean War, as it marks the 76th anniversary of the outbreak of hostilities back in 1950.

Rather than leave it open-ended, however, 1CGS followed up on that by announcing that the early access period will be extremely brief: Il-2 Korea is planned to come out of early access on August 4, barely a month after the initial launch.

Beyond signalling the team is confident about the game launching in a decent state, it is good news for single-player mains like myself. While the majority of features will be available in open access, I was dismayed to hear that Career Mode, the primary single-player campaign mode in Il-2, won't be available on the early access launch. I can survive a few weeks without that.

Early Access Features

There will be three ways to play when the game drops on June 25: multiplayer, single missions, and the good old quick mission generator.

1CGS plans to have a series of realistic and casual multiplayer servers up upon launch with a basic team deathmatch mission. As with previous titles, the real deal will be the community servers that come online with original, complex missions. I'm looking forward to whenever the first campaign-style server comes online, as nothing hits quite as hard as a persistent, moving frontline you can affect directly.

Career Mode, the primary single-player campaign mode in Il-2, won't be available on the early access launch.

For the single-player experience, Il-2 Korea will have a selection of narrative-driven missions based on historical events. On top of that, you'll be able to generate quick missions to fly around or practice against air targets. There's been no word on how to practice ground attack missions, but you can just hit up the free flight preset and make bombing passes on an airfield in a pinch.

New players will also have access to Exams for four of the eight aircraft, which teach you basic and advanced operations on these complex machines.

The action will play out on a map that spans over 200,000km², making it the largest in any Il-2 game to date.

Aircraft and DLC

Upon launch, players will have access to eight player-controllable aircraft, plus a variety of AI ones, including the B-29 Superfortress and Tu-2 bombers, and the good old C-47 transport.

The standard edition of the game includes the following planes:

F-86A-5 Sabre
MiG-15bis
F-51D Mustang
Yak-9P
F-80C-10 Shooting Star
Il-10

Pre-ordering either standard or founder's edition also grants access to the two collector planes, the American F-84E Thunderjet fighter-bomber and the Soviet La-11 fighter.

Owners of the Founder's Edition will also get access to an upcoming unannounced DLC, the contents of which I am fairly certain of.

All things point to an expansion into naval aviation, which would potentially see iconic period aircraft added together with the whole new world of flying off of aircraft carriers. Given that the page specifies six aircraft, here are my guesses of what we will see:

F9F Panther
F2H Banshee
F4U-4 Corsair
AD-4 Skyraider
Sea Fury
Seafire

I'll come back to update this list once there is confirmation, but I'm fairly confident about it.

If you want to play Il-2 Korea from June 25 in early access, you can buy it on the game's official website. Il-2 Korea will also become available on Steam upon the 1.0 release on August 4.