If you asked someone for the biggest flight simulator news of this month, or even this year, they’d probably tell you that it’s Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 coming out on the PlayStation 5 later this year. While that is indeed colossal, it pales in comparison to the latest chapter in an ugly business dispute that has been brewing for two years now.
In the combat flight simulator side of things, Eagle Dynamics and RAZBAM Simulations have been locked in a public legal battle that started over two years ago, with the damage estimated to be in the seven figures.
The fallout of this has arguably killed Digital Combat Simulator, the biggest game in the genre by a long shot, but in the chaos of the Tokyo Game Show, there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel.
The Future Through a TGS Booth and a Post
Earlier this week, DCS leaker ‘Bonzo’ shared photos of a booth in the Tokyo Game Show sporting the MicroProse and RAZBAM logos prominently side-by-side. Inside, the main poster in the background reads ‘The MicroProse Combat Flight Simulation’, once again with a RAZBAM logo and a screenshot of one of its products released for DCS.
While the partnership between the two companies had been speculated about for around a year now, this year’s TGS took things to a new level when RAZBAM boss Ron Zambrano took to social media to share the big news.
The post does not mention the game by name, but it is almost certainly Falcon 5, which MicroProse CEO David Lagettie confirmed two years ago in an interview with PC Pilot Magazine.
Information about Falcon 5 is sparse thus far, though earlier this year Lagettie shared that the game’s development is well underway, and shared in-game screenshots of the F-16 and, shockingly, the new F-35B fifth-generation fighter.
Zambrano’s latest announcement and previous teasers hint that RAZBAM aircraft initially developed for DCS will make their way over to Falcon 5, but there are rumors suggesting this is only the beginning. If the partnership with MicroProse works out, it’ll be a lifeline for the talented team to thrive again in a flight simulator.
The Dispute That Killed Combat Flight Sims
Although the spat between RAZBAM and DCS World developer Eagle Dynamics only became public in 2024, the dispute had been brewing behind closed doors for a year.
As corroborated by a leaked Zoom call between the CEOs of both companies, Eagle Dynamics had been withholding payment (allegedly well over a million dollars) from RAZBAM Simulations in retaliation for an agreement the latter had forged with the Ecuadorian Air Force to gain access to the Embraer A-29B Super Tucano light attack aircraft.
The playerbase had been divided over the facts, but public opinion swung strongly to the RAZBAM side after a leaked hour-long video call. Among other things, it showed Eagle Dynamics leadership detailing strange things like talking about the things that happened to those who wronged him in the past after bragging about not getting a bullet to the head while doing business in Eastern Europe.
Meanwhile, RAZBAM’s president maintained a conciliatory tone, explaining that his main concern is being able to pay his developers, and that he was happy to front whatever amount of money needed to solve the dispute with immediate effect. Eagle Dynamics, however, talked only of wanting to maintain ‘leverage’. Here is the first part of the interview, with the other excerpts available on the same channel:
It may sound dramatic, but until the ‘soft-confirmation’ that RAZBAM would be working on Falcon 5, this dispute almost sent flight sims to the grave that the genre had narrowly avoided in the last decade.
As things stand, serious progress for DCS World appears to be effectively halted. Eagle Dynamics does not have the source code for RAZBAM products (despite saying this would be in escrow for 3rd party products following the bankruptcy of another developer), so major updates to the game would make these aircraft unplayable. That includes the F-15E Strike Eagle, said to be the fastest-selling module in the series’ history.
Since DCS has no real modern competitor, this looked like curtains for the genre. Since the dispute, Eagle Dynamics has been releasing early access content at breakneck speed, with many players accusing the developer of playing a cash grab with no intention of finishing the products.
If MicroProse can bring RAZBAM and Falcon 5 back to the big stage, together with the upcoming release of Il-2: Korea by 1CGS, it could usher in a golden age when combat flight sims are not held hostage by one single company.
Until then, at least we get to play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 on PlayStation, making ‘pew pew’ noises with our mouths aboard the F/A-18 there.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
