Why Red Baron Now?
Since I left the game and flight sim industry in 1994, the new flight simulators have not appealed to me. They have truly excelled in the obvious areas: graphics and flight model. But I think they dropped the ball in other key areas. I don’t think the campaigns are as immersive and compelling as they could be. They certainly haven’t pushed design in this area at all.
And, I think they pretty much have ignored the vast majority of people who don’t play flight sims. This is sad. The genre could be so much more popular and be filled with so many more great gamers. I myself am a hard-core flight sim player—I’m a real pilot, and I am familiar with the details of flight and weather and airplanes—but I want to bring in many more people. Right now many flight sims are really daunting to new players.
The controls are difficult and frustrating. I am not saying that we should make silly arcade flight games. I dislike those as much as anyone. The experience they offer is vapid. However, we can create a much better learning experience for new players. We can help them along each step of the way, and as they progress, discover new levels of realism for them to master. As it is now, we only get the really determined players to stick it out and become experts.
So, I believe there is a false choice being presented to gamers: a flight game must either be:
a hard-core hyper-realistic vehicle simulation that will require tens or hundreds of hours of intense learning before you feel proficient, OR
it is easy to learn, easy to fly, kind of fun for while, but ultimately it’s a pretty empty experience, and really it’s just an arcade game skinned as a flight sim.
I completely reject this choice. The consequence of this is that the vast majority of gamers don’t even bother to look at flight sims because they want something that is easy to learn, fun to play, yet is a deep, rich experience with layers that can be discovered over time.
So, we will deliver an experience that is both a game that is easy-to-learn, but under the hood it is a rich and deep simulation, and the player can peel off more and more levels to discover new tactics and levels of immersion within the reality of the world.
We'll have more detailed examples in the coming days and weeks on how we will accomplish this.
That’s why Red Baron now. Thanks for listening!
Damon
