If you grew up in the early 2000s while playing as many flight games on your dad's old PC like I did, then you will remember the amount of small titles that tried to compete with each other. Two that got stuck in my mind were IL-2 1946 and Strike Fighters, both of which are sim-lite titles. They have aspects of a proper flight simulation without being full-on study simulators, or even regular flight sims.
Games like these two seem to just be gone from the market, except for the IL-2 franchise, which is doing quite well. That being said, all the other smaller, less niche titles have mostly disappeared or have moved to the mobile market, which is the case for Strike Fighters. I think there is only one game to blame: War Thunder.
With its mix of approachable gameplay, vehicle variety and quick connection matchmaking, War Thunder has made it basically impossible for any other games to compete with it. In its aviation tech tree, you can get almost any popular plane either by grinding or buying them as premiums, which incentivizes people to go through the tech tree themselves and grind them until they get to their favorite aircraft.
Hundreds upon hundreds of aircraft, all with pretty detailed 3D models and adequate flight physics, are available to any player that puts in the time or money. If an indie game developer, or even an AA game studio, would want to compete with the Snail in this genre, they would have to match them either in quality, quantity or both! That is quite the ask.
People seem to also have a preference for that pick-up and play flow that War Thunder has. They can get home from work, do a couple of matches, die to some random with a couple of thousand hours in the game at least four separate times, get frustrated and quit the game with absolutely no consequences. I for sure know a couple of my friends have that approach to War Thunder, and that being able to just get on and off the game so easily is a core aspect of why they like this game so much.
With games like DCS, there is much more of a time commitment so WT players tend to stray away from it; and games like Strike Fighters 2 are now over a decade old, and no longer even accessible through popular game distribution sites!
If you wanted to do a sim-lite nowadays, as a developer, you would have to tailor to aspects of nostalgia from old players or to a very polished a unique experience, which is the case of Tiny Combat Arena and IL-2 Korea respectively. If you want to do a big and fun sim-lite how Strike Fighter 2 was, you will be sharing a playerbase with War Thunder, good luck with that.
There are games out there that have succeeded in a sim-lite genre in spite of War Thunder's existence, such as Gunner Heat PC. They have tailored to a more accurate and unique single player experience in the armored vehicle scene and have sold quite well, while also being critically acclaimed even inside WT player circles.
I miss the times when I would see these unique, single-player sim-lite flight games would come out. While War Thunder can be extremely fun sometimes, I do prefer to be able to be able to play the game in its fullest in a single-player scenario, with a campaign or mission creator, or even pre-prepared missions. Pictures by Wyvern and Cubeboy.
About the writer
Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as the co-founder and writer ever since. Twitter | Discord: Cubeboy
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