Combat Pilot is a work-in-progress, hardcore combat flight simulator franchise, set in the Second World War.
The Combat Pilot development team is currently developing the sim’s initial release around the Pacific theater, specifically the Battle of Midway, but will be expanding the sim into other areas of the war in later stages. One of these areas was teased during the presentation at FlightSimExpo 2024 by Jason Williams, executive producer of the project.
Jason is no stranger to the flight simulator scene, as he previously was CEO of 777 Studios, known for the successful IL-2 Great Battles and Rise of Flight franchises.
Combat Pilot Teaser
Combat Pilot made an appearance last week at FlightSimExpo 2024 in Las Vegas, where the team gave a presentation about the project.
Just a few days before FSExpo, however, Jason already released a status update on the Combat Pilot Discord channel, which gave us the most complete looking previews into the project so far.
From fully modeled and textured planes and boats, to the scenery and environment, this certainly is the most “complete” we’ve seen this project so far.
In one of the screenshots we can see a F4F-4 Wildcat eagerly waiting to take the skies, standing on the deck of the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier. In another shot we see an A6M2 “Zeke”, more commonly known as the “Zero”, taking off from the Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi. In yet another screenshot we observe the F4F-4 soaring the skies above Midway Atoll.
Jason frequently releases project updates with screenshots over on Combat Pilot’s Discord server, but until now they mostly consisted of individual models. This is the first time where we can see these individual models come together in the actual sim itself.
FlightSimExpo 2024 presentation summary
A few days after this teaser, Jason, together with Barbedwire Studio Director Carlos Flors, gave a presentation at Flight Sim Expo 2024 last week, providing more details regarding the development and roadmap of the project.
Jason started the presentation by saying that “Combat Pilot will be the first ‘original’ combat flight sim to come out in 20+ years”, meaning the first combat flight sim which is not based on any previous game/sim engine.
Instead, the sim is being hand-crafted out of Unreal Engine 5.
Jason then passed the microphone to Carlos, who is overseeing all the technical aspects of the project. Carlos explained a bit more about the technological features and challenges.
The engine will be running on DirectX12, which opens the door to features such as ray tracing, which was mentioned to be included in Combat Pilot.
There will also be Physically Based Rendering (PBR), a feature we already know from Microsoft Flight Simulator, which allows textures to behave more realistically with lighting and gives an extra sense of 3D detail. And the sim will make use of Advanced Multi Threading, which allows the most use of PC hardware, with the aim of better performance.
Another feature which got mentioned was “Virtualized Geometry”, which Carlos described as “No more problems spotting aircraft in the sky as they switch LOD’s”, a problem which has plagued combat flight sim players since the dawn of time.
Both Carlos and Jason briefly talked about “Partnership Collaboration”. However, the only explanation we received about this, is that they’ll be looking into “qualified partners” to create detailed aircraft for the sim.
So we can expect other companies/creators to create DLC for the sim, but only those who have been deemed qualified enough to do so. Whether these will be 2nd party, 3rd party or perhaps even community creators, was not mentioned.
According to Carlos, the sim will have a shelf life of 20+ years, huge amounts of high fidelity aircraft and the sim will be a “from the community, for the community” project, where the community can get involved with the development.
In the second year of development, starting now, the team will be looking into further increasing their budget and team size. One way of increasing the budget which got mentioned, is by setting up a Patreon page in order to receive community financial support.
Other than that, development key focus points for the second year are:
- Multiplayer
- Virtual reality
- The increase of plane and ship models
Jason ended the presentation by teasing the first content addition to the sim, which will be the Solomon Islands, infamously known for the Guadalcanal Campaign.
For more information about this project, visit the Combat Pilot website, or join the Combat Pilot Discord channel, where the team frequently shares updates and teasers about the sim and where you can even get involved yourself, by asking questions or providing suggestions to the sim!
