The last time that a major studio made a WW II combat flight sim was in 2002 and it actually sold quite well. So I think that there is a huge missed opportunity by these companies to abandon this space. Let me make my case.
We currently see that MSFS is quite popular, although it is a game for people who just want to fly around and there is no combat in the game. However, we know that very many people like games where they have to defeat enemies and perform ingame challenges, which MSFS doesn't provide much of.
War Thunder is also extremely popular, being the 12th most played game on Steam, although it is free. However, that is still a great result for a game from 2013. So from the success of both of these games we know that there is a large audience for flight sims.
What is missing here is a game that really optimizes the single player experience, while being less arcady than War Thunder, but also not so complicated as DCS. And all of those games focus primarily on multiplayer, just like IL-2 Sturmovik does. This is despite data that the latter game is actually more popular in single player, even though there are a lot of weak spots when playing it that way. By focusing purely on single-player, you could really make a game that is great for single player and I think that this niche is currently very poorly served and could entice a lot of people. There also wouldn't be issues with cheating, synchronizing across systems, having to run servers, having to ensure that there are enough people online, etc. So it would save a lot of headaches/money for the studio.
So why a WW II setting, rather than WW I or modern jets, like Ace Combat? The reason is that WW II combat has a great blend of sufficient speed, but not crazy speed. Piloting skills and the visceral impact of a bullet rule in that setting, rather than the skill being in a missile, which is a fairly detached way of killing the enemy.
So what should this AA WW II combat flight sim provide that in my eyes, would make it a success? First of all, it should focus less on the tiny details, like managing the cooling of engines, but focus on the more realistic parts of WW II flying that are fun, like:
- The actual dog fighting
- Being able to sneak up on enemies
- Helping and being helped by your wingman
- Finding and engaging enemies both in the air and on the ground
I think that we are a point where an AI can be made that is very good and that would really elevate this game over games of the past, where opponents and friendlies were very dumb. In my proposed sim, each pilot would have one or more goals that it tries to achieve and the pilot would have realistic limitations. So it can't look through the plane and can't look everywhere at once. Just like a real person, it would make a guess where you go if it loses sight of you, so you could trick it by changing direction. You can also use clouds to make it lose sight of you. You can also sneak up on planes, if they haven't yet seen you.
One good option is to make some fixed missions, but that really reduces the play time of the game. I think that it is now possible with modern computers to have a full war simulation going on that is generated on the fly and sets goals for the AI opponents and friendlies, who would play their role in this war. So you might have an offensive somewhere, where you get a realistic sequence of events. For example, a heavy escorted bomber attack before the ground assault and then more sporadic bombings and close air support afterwards. This way, the game never stops giving you new challenges. Of course, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't have curated missions. You could have both those and the generated gameplay.
An important part should be the ability to see a replay from what happened before, so you can admire a nice kill or see how you were shot down. You might even have a Sniper Elite-like kill cam, where you follow the path of the bullet that killed the enemy plane or pilot, or yourself.
The gameplay would ideally also be very flexible, where it can be setup in arcade-mode, total realism or somewhere in between. And it should be possible to skip both landing and taking off, but also be able to skip time to the next engagement. So if you have little time, you can choose to just skip to the dog fights. And of course, it should have great VR support, as that is truly great for flight simming and increasingly popular.
Monetization is very important for modern games. So would this game make money? IL-2 Sturmovik actually shows very well how this can be done. This small studio regularly cranks out new DLCs that use the same engine, but have a new map and new planes. They manage to ask a pretty high price for each DLC, but also regularly do sales. So they get a lot of money from the wealthy and/or impatient, but the game is still accessible to those with less money. Because the engine is the same for each DLC, each DLC benefits from any improvements they make, which provides great value for buyers, but also reduces costs for the studio.
Aside from these DLCs, IL-2 also sell separate planes, as well as mission packs. So this could be done for the game, as well as selling skins for planes and for pilots, for those who are willing to pay for it, but it won't hurt people who don't.
I really think that the big studio's are dropping the ball here and that they could make a game that doesn't take excessive money to make, but that would do very well and could earn them a lot of money.