A couple of problems to overcome: First impressions of IL-2 Korea’s new career commander

I knew from developer updates that IL-2 Series was going to evolve the career mode from the previous generation but I didn’t really have a good sense of how it would work in practice. Now we can try it for ourselves and I’m really excited to be flying missions in the new career commander mode. But it does have a big problem to overcome. Let’s discuss!

Let’s look at the new commander mode

IL-2 Series evolves the entire approach to career mode. There are many similarities starting out with selecting a plane, a squadron and base, and then flying generated missions. But this time you’re also in command of the squadron which gives us a kind of mini game where you’re part manager of your squadron as well as pilot within it.

You may not want to manage the squadron and there is no way to not be the commander. Fortunately, there’s a fair bit of automation built in and you can do very minimal management if you want.

For me, all of this management of the squadron is actually quite a bit of fun. Pop up instructions give you a sense of what the career experience is like and teaches you the interface to manage your missions. It’s no more complicated than your average board game and once you’ve got it, it’s remarkably simple to plan out a mission.

You have slots for three missions a day maximum and you weigh sending aircraft and pilots out versus keeping reserve strength for defeating unexpected enemy attacks or saving fuel and ammunition for a larger upcoming mission. Pilot and aircraft availability, fuel, ammunition, and combat effectiveness (which translate into some basic pilot stats) all factor in. I love this because what happens in the mission has long term effects on your squadron and what happens in the mission planning impacts your next mission directly.

You won’t always be flying the flights so when you’re not, you get this mission readout that gives you a sense of how the mission went minute to minute. You hope your pilots did well and that they return home to base safe – but they don’t always.

Most of the time you have a selection of missions to choose from ranging from strike and patrol missions to the occasional escort mission. Or at least that was what was presented when I started with the unit I’ve flown so far. Notably, historical events often take over your average scenario and cluster you into a specific area for a historical offensive/counter offensive.

I’m five missions into my first career now and, thanks to some miss-management on my…