Malta is a niche inside a niche inside a niche. If they are going to invest development resources it needs to be a broad based product.

Fortress Europe would be a good "broad based" product. You have all those mid-late war warplanes that everyone loves to fly. (109, Spit, Tempest, P-47, P-51, B-17, FW-190, Me-262, etc. The biggest problem is that what makes it such a draw (variety of aircraft over a huge map) also makes it incredibly labour intensive to complete. Dozens of new aircraft, tons of mapping, creating ground objects to bomb, a huge variety of armaments (bombs, rockets, MG's and Cannons) and a host of other issues.

If you can get a P-51 and a B-17, you're going to draw a lot of US players. If you can get the late war British and German aircraft you'll draw a lot of European players. The only problem might be lower sales in Russia (which is a big market for flight sims) since there wouldn't be any Russian content.

There really is no scenario that's all inclusive until you get into very late 44 and 45 where Allied and Soviet aircraft were over the Reich, but who want to play a game where the enemy is being outnumbered (in some cases 10-1) by the allies?

What it looks like they are doing is the most logical. Progressing threw the war years with the sim as it happened in real life. They started with The Battle of Britain because they needed a popular jumping off point I suppose.

Battle Of Britain 1940
Russia 1941-44?
The Mediterranean - North Africa 1941-43
The Western Air War Over Europe 1942-45

That line of progression makes sense since you have some overlapping of aircraft that you can either straight-up reuse for the next addition or slightly tweak to get the period appropriate model. The problem is that the Eastern front will probably be a low point for sales outside of Russia, and the Med/N. Africa isn't the most popular theater either. Cheaper to make the game and sequels this way, but limited returns.

I'd like to see what their marketing dept had to say about that path and the reasoning behind it. (assuming it happens in that order)

The Mediterranean theater might be a little more popular in the UK Australia and Canada. Germany may go for it too. Hans-Joachim Marseille and F4s :)

The problem is that it's a mostly forgotten theater in a war where Hollywood has told them which battles are important. (Stalingrade, Battle of Britain, Iwo Jima, and naturally D-Day. You, your friends, and the people who frequent these forums probably think it would be awesome to play, but we represent a very small portion of a very small niche market.

Gamer->PC Gamer->Flight Simmer->WWII Enthusiast->Med/N. Africa.

There's a reason why you don't see many N. Africa or Eastern front movies in theaters, because the studios have done the research and they rank pretty low in the interest category. I'd love to bust some Hurricanes over the desert in my F-4, but I'd be surprised if I wasn't in the minority when it came to that over a 1944-45 European campaign.

Yes I would much rather have The Mediterranean - North Africa than 1944-45 Western Air War Over Europe mainly because of the great fighter mach ups. There's usually a lot of brawling on those North Africa maps in IL-2...when there's people around.

The late Western Air War will have the beloved P-51 D so you'll get lots of lust for that in America. Somehow for me though this arena isn't as much fun as being in an F4 in the desert.

I'd prefer a post-BOB Western Europe first of all, let's say 1941 - '42. This would include a few new fighters and some AI bombers and a somewhat larger Western Europe map (and re-use a lot of objects already there). It would also be the easiest extension to get done while they fix the underlying engine and all bugs reported sofar. It would mean some new variants of Spits and Me's and a nice new FW ;-)

BoM is far more radical and a lot more ambitious. New map, new planes and a lots of new objects. In this case there's far more for to do than just fixing the game itself. I understand they like to do this because it's a Russian game and also would like to see the Eastern theatre included again, but I'm not that convinced they will be able to pull this off in 6 months or so.

First they'd need to radically improve this game and bring it up to a state where il2 4.11 stands now. Graphics are the least of their problems right now; they are already great and highly detailed, but there's a lot more than just eye-candy.

Rgs,
FP

aaaaaaaaahahahahaha, you're my favourite welshman for the rest of this year :)

Well The Battle For Moscow will be fine especially for the Luftwaffe in my opinion because FW 190 fans may get their zoomer. I'll get my F4. Russian boys will get their aeroplanes witch unfortunately for us as things progressed got very good.