DCS World

[#Drennn.]

Developer: Eagle Dynamics

Publisher: The Fighter Collection

The history of combat flight simulation is littered with the rivet-studded hulks of studios that perished pursuing the hyper-realism dream. Jane’s Combat Simulations, Spectrum HoloByte, 1C: Maddox… delivering breathtakingly detailed warbird facsimiles might guarantee high-brow approbation but it doesn’t guarantee success or survival. It would be tempting to think of armed aerial study sims as splendidly byzantine suicide notes if Eagle Dynamics hadn’t proved time and time again that they were actually perfectly viable commercial propositions.

What DCS World users get from forensically faithful payware modules like A-10C, Black Shark, and MiG-21Bis is not dissimilar to what MSFS users get from from forensically faithful payware add-ons like the PMDG’s 747 and A2A’s Accu-Sim C172 – unabashed realism, priceless insights, bond-forging intimacy. What FSX can’t offer at present (though it has aspirations in that direction) is the chance to fly high fidelity aircraft in complex threat-stuffed combat environments. To understand what it means to be a front-line pilot in a contemporary warzone, you need this sim (and the one two slots south of it) in your life.

Over the last few years ED have overseen a burgeoning third-party development scene. At times there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the mix of incoming aircraft (Bf-109s, Sabres, Hips, Hawks…) but the diversity does mean everyone’s sure to find a winged or rotored soulmate amongst the modules. If DCS World has weaknesses at present, they are campaign structure and cartographic variety. Until WIP Nevada and Strait of Hormuz theatres arrive and the devs rethink their campaign approach, fliers must content themselves with Caucasian skies and sequential scripted sorties.