Korea: Il-2 Series Fills a CFS-Shaped Hole in My Heart

It all kicked off at 04:40 on June 25, 1950. An artillery barrage blanketed South Korean positions in the Ongjin Peninsula, a story that would repeat itself all across the 38th northern parallel, marking the start of the Korean War. To this day, the air and land battles there have yet to be surpassed in intensity by any conflict since.

The Il-2 Series' first entry outside of World War 2 entered early access on the 76th anniversary of the start of hostilities, and though Korea has never been farther from the reunification aspirations of Kim Il Sung and Syngman Rhee, this flight sim offers a rare window into a war that has largely been forgotten by history despite its scale and importance.

After a short but insightful virtual sit-down with the developers, I got a week's worth of hands-on experience with Il-2 Korea (as I'll refer to it henceforth, because Korea. Il-2 Series does not have a ring to it). I had lofty expectations given my familiarity with the team's work dating back to Rise of Flight in 2010, and while Il-2 Korea matched them in terms of realism, the ambience sent me down a nostalgic rabbit hole in a way no flight sim had in the last two decades.

Welcome to the Jet Age

Progress in aviation has slowed down considerably. The most widely-deployed fighter today is the F-16, a platform initially fielded in the late 1970s, and some airframes from the early batches are still flying around. In the aftermath of World War 2, however, combat aviation experienced revolutions every year.

The roster of Il-2 Korea is quite telling: you have a sky shared between swept-wing transonic fighters, and tail-dragger piston prop designs like the C-47 of 1936 vintage. The props you fly here are the pinnacle of their designs, whereas the jets are in their infancy and have occasional deathtrap tendencies. This juxtaposition is what builds up the magic of this era, because while the jets have a clear advantage, the prop pilots still have a fighting chance if they play their cards right.

Now, I had some experience handling the F-86 and especially the MiG-15 from DCS World, but until now, I never had a fitting environment to enjoy them in. It's interesting to compare those experiences because in that simulator, these are the absolute underdogs of jets, whereas in Il-2, they play the role of apex predator.

I Can Handle It

I got to experience my Korea journey with a Virpil WarBRD joystick, a Thrustmaster TWCS throttle, and a pair of new Saitek Pro Flight rudder pedals. My computer isn't hot enough for VR, and I have no means of headtracking available, but that didn't get in the way too much.

Before I even got my first light in, I was amazed by how much work 1CGS put into making a sim that is accessible without compromising on realism. From the main menu, you can read an informative "For Dummies" guide to each plane, covering the basics of operations, cockpit layout, and a nice bit of historical context. I was actually gearing up to write some tutorials for each aircraft in-game here, but it seems a lot of that won't be needed because Il-2 Korea serves you most of it on a plate.

The control setup, easily one of the worst features of Il-2 Great Battles, has been overhauled to make it as painless as it can be. The game offers presets for popular peripherals, and though I ended up changing a lot of keybindings to fit my old habits, the standard ones were completely fine for the first few flights. Once I was done setting everything up and navigating the menus, it was time to get some flying in.

Shooting Stars

For my first foray into the world of Il-2 Korea, I picked the F-80C-10. This was the first American fighter jet to see operational service, and it felt like the perfect way to get a feeling for this transition era. Standard free flight, nothing fancy.

It immediately stood out to me how the aircraft in the sim have a nice 'weight' to them. This is a tricky thing to get right, especially without force feedback and a stick extension, but my little desktop WarBRD was giving me plenty of feedback without having to tweak the curves and deadzones.

True to its aerodynamic arrangement, the F-80 feels like a WW2 piston on steroids. It turns like a dream, goes mighty fast in a straight line, but also has the acceleration of a dump truck thanks to the mighty blow-dryer that's the Allison J33 engine. This is something you will find across most jets in-game: plenty of speed available, just don't waste it unless you have two minutes to spare. Following a fairly acceptable landing for a first-timer, it was time to jump into combat, and that's where Il-2 Korea shines.

Putting the War in Korea

Air-to-ground work is easily the strongest point in Il-2 Korea, thanks to the work 1CGS put into the ground units and the world they exist in. Most other flight sims feel fairly sterile in that regard, so it was nice to actually feel like I was strafing a real column rather than generic static targets that exist only to get blown up.

The heavy anti-aircraft guns have a nice 'thump' to them, feeling appropriately dangerous as the rounds whizz by. Automatic weapons do a decent job tracking you, but without feeling like the aimbot gunners that plague the genre. Drivers actively tried to evade my strafing runs, and it is possible to suppress anti-aircraft weapons by targeting them directly, even without a direct hit.

Similarly, the ground vehicles have a modular approach to them that closely matches what you'd expect in real combat: a tank does not need to be vaporized to be destroyed; you can disable it even temporarily and have that count towards stopping an attack, for example. As a ground pounder with a chip on his shoulder in other games, it was refreshing to see that.

Unfortunately for those who prefer flying Red, the realities of the conflict make the plane set a little skewed in that regard. North Korean aircraft are heavily geared toward air combat, with the exception of the venerable but hopelessly outdated Il-10. The MiG-15bis and Yak-9P can still carry a pair of bombs and pack serious heat on the nose, but it is nowhere near the warload you will find on all American aircraft. On the other hand, the La-11 and Yak-9P have hot rod performance at lower levels, making life hard for any UN strike plane, be it jet or prop, that overstays its welcome.

All Tangled Up

By the time the Vietnam War came about, missiles had become the primary means of killing anything that flies. Korea, in that regard, is still a 'pure' conflict. No matter how fancy your Sabre or MiG is, you won't shoot down anyone unless you know how to maneuver and shoot, and that remains an all-manual procedure in this game.

I found myself trying different matchups to get a feeling for how they compare, and it took me back to a happy place, sitting on my granddad's lap playing Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator. That innocence of just enjoying how two different planes fight each other, with a simple, easy-to-navigate interface, and controls that felt realistic but also accessible, was unique then, and it is unique now.

Sure, you can't go around clicking every switch in Il-2 Korea, but you don't need to. There are enough keybindings to go around and, crucially, an all-new management HUD you can bring up to make minute adjustments without having to remember a billion key combos.

As a game in early access, Il-2 Korea is still missing its career mode. During the preview chat, producer Daniel Tuseev mentioned this feature would be available in the second half of July. One wonders if this will be timed with the signing of the armistice on July 27.

Right now, there are a handful of servers up, and it shouldn't take long for more complex multiplayer missions, including persistent campaigns, to make their way into the game.

This relative lack of content next to Il-2 Great Battles is the biggest issue I ran into in this early access period, but it's refreshing to know it won't last long. As it is, Il-2 Korea is a great flight simulator. More content and expansions might well make it the best of its generation.