Hello, comrades!

Today, we will continue the discussion about the new module, "Odessa and Leningrad. Siege and Liberation," which Daniel and Viktor recently discussed in a Dev Brief:

We plan to open pre-orders and early access to the new module as early as next week.

As you know, the module will include two maps, "Odessa" and "Gulf of Finland," which were created by teams from the respective locations. A small group of enthusiasts from Odessa and Mariupol is working on the Odessa map, and a group of Finnish enthusiasts is working on the Gulf of Finland map. The latter group has set itself the goal of reproducing that region during World War II. We assisted both groups in the development process, but they came up with the idea, took the initiative, and did most of the work.

We decided to accompany both maps with two stages of a pilot's career mode, in keeping with the name of this module. The first stage recounts the heroic defense of Odessa and Leningrad in 1941, and the second stage recounts the liberation of these "hero cities" in 1944. Incidentally, "hero cities" is not just a figure of speech, but an official title given to such cities by a state decree in 1965, 60 years ago. These stages of a pilot's career will cover significant periods. For Odessa, they are June–October 1941 and April–August 1944. For Leningrad, they are September 1941–April 1942 and January–September 1944. Combined, they will comprise the longest career mode of any World War II module; only the 1916–1918 aviator career is longer.

Siege and Liberation will feature eight new planes, four for each period of the war. Three of these aircraft are brand new and designed from scratch, while two are significant modifications of earlier aircraft. The remaining three will not differ significantly in terms of flight characteristics, but their visual quality will greatly surpass that of the prototypes. We discussed the characteristics of these planes in detail in Dev Diary #369, and today, we can show new screenshots demonstrating our progress on these aircraft.

The Siege and Liberation pre-order and early access program will progress as follows.

End of spring

In a few days, the program will launch. You will have early access to the Odessa map and the I-153 and LaGG-3 Series 4 planes.

End of Summer

Early access to the Yak-3 series 9 and the Yak-1 series 23.

First half of Fall

Early access to the Bf 109 E-4 and Ju 87 D-5 aircraft.

Winter

Official release including the Gulf of Finland map, pilot career mode, the La-7 series 1, and the IL-2 mod. 1944 aircraft.

Please note that the Early Access discount is more significant the earlier you make the purchase. As we add more planes and get closer to the official release date, the discount will decrease.

To conclude today's dev blog, we would like to mention that the development of the Great Battles game world will not end with Siege and Liberation. Soon, we will announce our plans for 2026, and we hope they surprise and delight you!

Stay tuned!