• Commander Career — experience the events of the Korean War from April 1951 to July 1953, with new gameplay mechanics, 22 mission types, and 63 playable air units.
• Mission Editor — a new built-in editor with 25 types of combat missions and expanded options for configuring their parameters.
• Scripted Campaigns — play handcrafted campaigns. At release, James Yarborough’s “Home by Christmas” is available.
• Single-player scripted missions — play scenarios created by users. At release, two large-scale combat missions are available.
• Museum — an in-game catalog featuring the appearance, specifications, and detailed descriptions of more than 100 vehicles and other pieces of equipment represented in the game.
• Fly Now! — quickly take to the air in an aircraft selected in the Museum and try it in a variety of combat roles.
• Trials — unique missions for practicing and testing piloting and air-combat skills, with four trials for each aircraft.
• Dogfight — a continuous multiplayer scenario with drop-in access for up to 84 players.
• Co-op — cooperative play through PvE and PvPvE scenarios.
• Track Playback — watch a recording of a battle.

GRAPHICS ENGINE AND RENDERING

• A modern graphics engine built entirely on DirectX 12.
• A unified texture and material system based on Physically Based Rendering (PBR).
• Support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) image upscaling.
• Support for NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) image upscaling.
• New anti-aliasing modes: universal TXAA and DLAA for NVIDIA graphics cards.
• Rendering in linear color space provides more natural color blending and physically correct lighting.
• Color grading based on Lux Color Grade technology.
• A secondary reflected-lighting system for objects in the frame.
• A new system for dynamic environment reflections.
• A system that allows graphics settings to be applied without restarting the game.

LIGHTING, ATMOSPHERE, AND VISUAL EFFECTS

• Improved High Dynamic Range (HDR) effect.
• Improved Bloom effect.
• A new, highly detailed Sun Glare effect.
• Gun Camera filming effect.
• Ray-traced volumetric lighting for the atmosphere and haze provides more natural light distribution and a stronger sense of depth.
• Mountains and hills cast shadows on atmospheric haze, the terrain, and objects located behind them.
• Physically correct lighting of objects and terrain that accounts for the shape of the ground surface and flight altitude.
• Rain is rendered in the near, middle, and far distance.
• Night lighting for settlements, roads, and airfields.
• High-intensity light sources from illumination bombs.
• A new system for lighting, animating, and editing visual-effect particles.

WATER AND COASTLINE

• Ray-traced water transparency.
• A new system for rendering the three-dimensional sea surface and ship-motion effects.
• A new hybrid reflection system for water surfaces.
• Visualization of differences between areas of the sea surface at long range.
• Realistic coastal-water depth improves the appearance of shorelines and surf and also makes it possible to simulate amphibious landings.
• A system for automatically texturing riverbanks and seashores.
• Animated water textures in mountain rivers and below dams.
• A new system for rendering river dams.

TERRAIN AND VEGETATION

• A new airfield texturing system with support for creating surface relief.
• A new system for rendering trees and forests, together with a completely updated set of vegetation models.
• A grass-rendering system with greater variety and detail.
• A new system for rendering the ground surface at extremely close range.
• A shrub-rendering system.

CITIES, BUILDINGS, AND DESTRUCTION

• A new system for creating, editing, and rendering cities and villages.
• Partial level-of-detail switching for individual groups of buildings.
• Highly detailed models of houses and other buildings with additional close-range details.
• A detailed animation system for the destruction of bridge spans.
• Buildings and vehicles can be placed on artificial surfaces such as breakwaters, piers, and embankments.
• Functional road and railway tunnels.
• Explosion craters, earthen revetments, and trenches with actual depth and increased detail.

ROADS AND RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE

• A wide variety of road types.
• Railways with three-dimensional rails and sleepers.
• A system for automatically placing three-dimensional railway crossings where railways intersect roads.
• Roadside utility poles with night lighting, wires, and a physical destruction model.
• Roads and railway track beds use complex materials and normal maps to reproduce fine surface relief.

VR AND COCKPIT VIEW

• The pilot’s body model is visible from the cockpit view.
• OpenXR support in addition to OpenVR.

AIRCRAFT, COCKPITS, AND DAMAGE

• 8 highly detailed player-controlled aircraft models recreated with the highest possible degree of authenticity, including their cockpit interiors.
• Higher texture density and detail for interiors.
• 4 AI-controlled models of multi-engine bombers and transport aircraft.
• All aircraft exterior surfaces and cockpit interiors use PBR materials with normal maps, providing more accurate surface texture, relief, and interaction with light.
• New approaches to material surface detailing, especially aircraft skin and paint finishes.
• New landing-gear visuals: three-dimensional tire tread, animated tire compression, and tire damage.
• Large holes and openings left by torn-off airframe panels reveal the internal structure of all parts of the aircraft, including engine compartments and cockpits.
• Damage is now visualized not only through textures, but also through changes to the three-dimensional model.
• Animated fragments of damaged aircraft skin move under the force of the airflow.
• Improved two-stage visualization of cockpit glazing damage.

MAP, TERRAIN, AND VEGETATION

• A 500 × 500 km map of the Korean Peninsula.
• A new approach to terrain design with more varied and realistic environmental details and textures.
• Five seasonal variants of the map.
• 16 tree models with variants for all five seasons.
• 10 shrub and grass models with variants for all five seasons.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND MAP OBJECTS

• 42 airfields with detailed surroundings.
• 2 training ranges.
• 24 military camps.
• 51 mining facilities.
• 800 settlements.
• 1,500 bridges.
• 40 tunnels and dams.
• 8,000 km of coastline.
• 11,000 km of road network, including 37 km of tunnels and 195 km of bridges.
• 84 bridge and tunnel models.
• 15 dam models.
• 200 models of houses and other buildings.

VEHICLES, WEAPONS, AND CHARACTERS

• 78 models of ground vehicles and weapons.
• 18 models of ships and boats.
• 10 pilot models and sets of flight gear.
• 38 character models: civilians, ground and naval personnel, and soldiers.
• 40 models of aerial bombs and rockets.

VISUAL EFFECTS

• 500 completely new visual effects.
• 510 visual effects recreated from scratch for Korea.

FLIGHT MODEL AND AERODYNAMICS

• An improved model of air compressibility at high speeds and the related effects, including changes in aircraft trim and controllability.
• An improved model of the effect of wing sweep on aircraft aerodynamics.
• An improved model of aerodynamic load distribution along the span of the wings and tail surfaces.
• An improved model of how control surfaces and wing high-lift devices affect aircraft stability and controllability.
• An improved flight-performance calculation system — values now change more accurately and smoothly depending on flight conditions.
• A new modular physics model for jet engines, providing more realistic behavior under different conditions, including damage and transient operating modes.
• An improved Force Feedback system.

AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS AND COCKPIT

• Radar rangefinder for the gunsight.
• Radar illumination warning indicator.
• External drop tanks.
• Detailed logical simulation of the aircraft’s hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, and fuel systems.
• Animated deformation of landing-gear tires under the weight of the aircraft.
• Animated vibration of cockpit elements, including instrument needles, panels, levers, wires, and other details.
• A detailed cockpit instrumentation model with a large number of functional controls.
• Level Autopilot with pitch hold and two turn rates.

AIRCRAFT DAMAGE MODEL

• Engine assemblies and individual components can be damaged independently of one another.
• The detailed hit model accounts for control linkages, load-bearing structural elements, control-system components, and powerplant components.
• A detailed damage model for engine subsystems.
• Engine cowlings and some other airframe panels can be torn off.
• Propeller blades, including metal ones, can be perforated or shot off.
• Damaged landing-gear struts can fall out of their bays.
• Landing-gear tires can be punctured.
• Landing-gear tires can blow out.
• Wing panels are divided into damageable sections in greater detail.
• Damage can deform not only the horizontal stabilizer surfaces but also the vertical fin.
• Damage to hydraulic, pneumatic, and electrical systems is modeled, along with the related instruments and components.
• The chance of fuel ignition depends on incendiary bullets, shells, and tracers, as well as fuel-tank fill level and the severity of leaks.
• Self-sealing fuel tanks and inert-gas pressurization are modeled.

SHIP DAMAGE MODEL

• The flooding model accounts for watertight compartments: ships can remain operational while partially flooded.
• The damage model allows ship hulls, funnels, and masts to be destroyed, and mounted guns to be torn away.

PHYSICS OF GROUND OBJECTS AND VEHICLES

• A new physical bridge destruction system.
• The physical model of airfield surfaces accounts for runways and taxiways: safe taxiing and takeoff require the use of prepared surfaces. Taking off across the airfield is now unsafe. Additional surface types with different physical properties have been added.
• The ground-vehicle physics model accounts for collisions, nearby explosions, and falls.
• A physically correct movement model for cars and tanks.

AIRCRAFT BEHAVIOR AND COMMAND

• An updated combat module for AI-controlled aircraft, featuring a new target selection and assignment system as well as revised behavior logic for special situations.
• A new command system for AI-controlled aircraft with expanded capabilities for the player acting as commander.
• The player commander can issue orders to wingmen and receive information from them about the combat situation.
• An expanded set of aircraft-group formations, improved formation keeping, and complex combat formations.
• An improved ground-attack system: AI-controlled aircraft plan their attack runs more effectively and execute attacks more efficiently.
• An improved air-combat system for high-speed and high-altitude engagements.

RADIO COMMUNICATIONS AND RADAR GUIDANCE

• An expanded radio-communications system based on speech synthesis.
• A system for providing information to AI-controlled aircraft from ground-based radar guidance stations.
• A system for player interaction with ground-based radar guidance stations.

AIRFIELD TAXIING

• An airfield ground controller with an expanded taxi-route graph.
• Airfield taxi-route graphs are now separate objects with expanded editing capabilities.

GROUND VEHICLES, TURRETS, AND INFANTRY

• Two-way vehicle traffic on wide roads.
• Turret AI has been optimized, making it possible to include large numbers of infantry squads in the game.

MISSION SCALE AND TOOLS

• Large formations of simplified AI-controlled bombers — up to 64 aircraft, excluding escorts.
• A system that allows individual route segments to be skipped, if desired, in missions involving long-distance flights.
• A special Reposition command for moving aircraft and ships around the map.
• The Time Shift function allows a specified portion of a mission to be skipped. Aircraft continue to consume fuel during the time shift. The function works together with the system for repositioning aircraft and ships on the map.
• At the start of a mission, vehicles and other units can be placed on buildings, bridges, and piers.

PILOT AND CUSTOMIZATION

• Pilots who leave their aircraft and end up in the water can swim.
• After landing by parachute, the player can move around the map on foot.
• In a single-player mission, the player can leave the aircraft, return to it if it is undamaged, or take control of another aircraft.
• Several pilot appearance options and hundreds of portraits: European, African-American, Latin American, Chinese, Korean, and Russian.
• Selectable helmet liveries for U.S. pilots.
• Aircraft numbers up to eight characters long.
• Aircraft numbers are displayed according to the way they were marked on different aircraft types.
• Victory tally markings can be displayed on the aircraft.
• Selectable personal aircraft emblems.

WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION

• Player-configurable ammunition belt composition.
• Additional ammunition types: armor-piercing incendiary and high-explosive incendiary rounds.
• Napalm tanks.
• Cluster bombs.
• Illumination bombs.

INFANTRY, CIVILIANS, AND PERSONNEL

• Mortar crews.
• Rifle and submachine-gun squads.
• Machine-gun squads.
• Civilian population in cities and villages.
• Workers in industrial zones, ports, and industrial facilities.
• Military personnel in military camps.
• Ground crews at airfields.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND WORLD OBJECTS

• Road trailers, including towed guns in transport configuration.
• Tanker trucks and refueling vehicles.
• Military buses.
• New animations and sounds for train departures and arrivals.
• Vehicle and trailer marker lights operate at night.
• An expanded system of truck and trailer variants, including tarpaulins, soldiers, fuel cargo, ammunition, anti-aircraft mounts, and box-body utility modules (KUNG).
• An expanded system of train cargo variants, including ammunition, fuel, coal, assorted crated cargo, logs, trucks, and tanks.
• Cars, tanks, and trains can be assigned identification numbers in the mission settings.
• Different paint schemes can be selected for ground vehicles.
• Functional radar stations.
• Functional pontoon rafts.
• Mining facilities.
• Functional tunnels.
• Wooden bridges.
• Repair sections for destroyed bridges.

DAMAGE TO GROUND OBJECTS AND VEHICLES

• Three-dimensional craters from large aerial bombs make it possible to disable a runway through intensive bombing.
• A detailed damage system for mobile ground vehicles, with individual parts capable of being torn off.
• A detailed damage system for static military objects, including artillery, radar stations, searchlights, and other equipment.
• Guns and machine-gun positions can be disabled by taking out their crews.
• When a ground vehicle is hit, surviving crew members or weapon crews scatter.
• Separate settings for resistance to blast and fragmentation effects make combat damage more realistic.
• A decal system displays bullet and shell impact marks on AI-controlled ground vehicles and ships.
• The crew of a knocked-out tank can abandon the vehicle and scatter.

SHIPS AND VESSELS

• A new object class — sailing vessels.
• When a ship is damaged, boats and rafts are launched into the water.
• Optimized ship-turret AI significantly reduces the performance load generated by AI-controlled ships, including in multiplayer.
• Some crew members are visible on decks and superstructures according to their battle stations.
• Ships fly flags whose animation depends on wind direction and strength as well as the ship’s movement.
• Ship guns can be disabled by taking out their crews.
• Ships are equipped with functional navigation lights.
• Some crew members abandon sinking ships and vessels and swim away.

• A new version of the FMOD sound engine.
• Support for stereo sound and 5.1 and 7.1 multichannel audio systems.
• A modern approach to the sound design of game objects, including their movement, engines, and system operation.
• Each aircraft has a unique sound model that realistically reproduces the sound of the historical aircraft under different conditions.
• A new approach to weapon and ammunition audio using modern sound-engine capabilities and new artistic solutions.
• A new system for pilot radio communications with more realistic audio and flexible options for adding new content.

• An optimized network model for ground vehicles and ships allows more complex multiplayer scenarios to be created.
• A modern and user-friendly interface for multiplayer modes.
• A new approach reduces fragmentation of the player base caused by different control devices and secondary settings.
• A system for sharing tactical markers on the in-game map helps players coordinate their actions and focus on common objectives.
• A new game-statistics system.
• A new social system featuring built-in squadrons and a friends list.

TECHNOLOGY, CONTROLS, AND OVERALL DESIGN

• A new interface engine based on Noesis technology.
• Faster loading of the game and complex missions.
• A new interface design that brings back the tactile aesthetic of Rise of Flight in a modern form.
• A unified design approach for all in-game dialogs.
• Support for controlling the interface with gamepads and HOTAS systems.
• A new, user-friendly game settings system.

IN-GAME INTERFACE

• An aircraft-systems control window.
• An aircraft-damage information window.
• An expanded wingmen command window.
• A more detailed Head-Up Display (HUD) with configurable indicators.
• A new player-statistics window.

MAP

• Map measuring tools: ruler and protractor.
• Custom map markers that can be shared with other players in multiplayer.

DEVICE SUPPORT

• Native gamepad support.
• In VR, the game can be fully controlled with HOTAS without using a mouse or keyboard.
• Connected input devices are detected without restarting the game. On the login screen, the check is performed once per second; in the control settings, devices can be rescanned with the Refresh Devices button.

CONTROL SETUP AND ASSISTS

• A new control setup assistant.
• A new system for detailed control-command configuration.
• The Sector Menu (Multimenu) allows all aircraft systems to be controlled without memorizing commands and also helps players learn them gradually.
• A system for searching commands by name or by pressing an assigned button.
• The ability to quickly clear command assignments for the selected device.

AXES, RESPONSE, AND MODIFIERS

• New modes linking the position of the physical controller stick to the aircraft control stick. They are designed for desktop joysticks, long-throw floor-mounted joysticks, Force Feedback devices, and gamepads.
• New built-in response curves, individually tuned by the engineers for each aircraft and control method.
• Custom modifier buttons.
• The ability to assign a command using two modifiers.
• The ability to assign axes to button-type commands.
• An additional additive axis mode with dead-zone and sensitivity settings.
• The ability to control aircraft yaw using two separate axes — for example, gamepad triggers or automotive pedals.

CONTROL TEMPLATES

• A control-layout template system with save and load functionality.
• Ready-made templates and graphical control-layout diagrams for more than 70 device models.

• New Drone View Near Aircraft camera — F3 key.
• New Wingman View camera — LWin + F3.
• The ability to adjust camera roll — LShift + NP4/NP5.
• The Tracking, Chase, and Gun Camera views now feature new dynamic tracking effects and allow the viewing angle to be adjusted.
• Onboard cameras with new dynamic effects.
• The Gun Camera view with a dedicated graphical post-processing effect.
• When looking around without TrackIR or VR, the virtual head shifts when the view is turned more than 90° to the side.
• A new automatic camera-control system for track playback selects the most suitable viewing angles based on upcoming events.

• Faster loading of the Mission Editor.
• An optimized object-selection system in the editor.
• New, more readable fonts in the editor.
• A road-editing system.
• A terrain-editing system.
• A system for editing bodies of water and forests.
• New built-in tools for automated detailing of coastlines, roads, and rivers.
• An expanded system for applying additional textures and details to the terrain.

• A DLC featuring five aircraft and new gameplay mechanics.
• A training mode for basic piloting and air-combat skills.
• New scripted campaigns.
• Twice as many mission types in Commander Career and the Mission Editor.

• Persistent map damage from day to day in Commander Career.
• A more realistic engine-damage model for exceeding the permitted operating time at combat or takeoff power. It will account for the heating of valves and piston rings: burn damage can reduce compression and eventually lead to engine seizure.
• Further improvements to AI-controlled aircraft behavior algorithms.
• Greater variety in radio communications.
• New multiplayer features.

• Leaderboard.
• A viewer tool for user-created models.

• Further refinement and improvement of all game systems.
• Rapid bug fixes based on player feedback.