Rising Sun is the new series from the makers of Yankee Air Pirate.

Maybe I had better explain since you went to the trouble to create this site, Doug.

Are there enough WWII flight sims? Probably too many. After IL-2, why bother?

We are going to bother. Yankee Air Pirate's business is story-telling. The area to be covered by Rising Sun (or Kyokujitsu in Japanese), is well-known history. Pearl Harbor. Doolittle. Midway. What's there to tell?

A lot.

(The pictures posted are preliminary and for demonstration only. They are not necessarily part of Rising Sun.)



...originally by Wolf.

In 1970, I read a book by John Toland called The Rising Sun. It told the story of the war in Asia and the Pacific in an even-handed way. That is not our goal. We just tell stories of pilots in the air. In Rising Sun...the game, the stories will lead the player into sitting in the places of Japanese, Chinese, British, Thai, Australian, Russian and American pilots. We think experiencing their missions, skills, fears and fates are things that are universally...or at least internationally...understandable. I think we all appreciate the bravery and skill of men at war in flying machines. I certainly do.



A glance at the list of participants reveals that now nobody on that list of combatants can today thrive without the help of almost everyone else. So we avoid politics and drama. All that is left are the stories.



We chose TK's engine for 3 reasons. First, our skills in that engine are fairly high. Second, TK's games do things with light that others do not do as well, in my opinion. And third, IL-2 and MSFS have mature games in this venue. While we are not competing for the same type of player, we do not need the confusion that would arise from us covering old ground in old sims.



...all ships by Hinchinbrooke.

We do not know how it will be marketed yet. We do know that we will release the stories in chronological order. That means right now we are awaiting the HMS Repulse and the HMS Prince of Wales. We have Battleship Row and Kido Butai.





I can understand why people would avoid this topic like poison. All our assets are going into a fleet that will either be sunk or remodeled or lost at Midway in the next phased release.



Our aircraft and ships will be new and of a level of detail where our players will not have to ignore all those great screenshots coming from IL-2 forums.



...original Yankee Air Pirate P-40B.

We will do our best to provide a believable environment. Each engine has its compromises. Our choice has a limited terrain editor. Luckily we have the most talented terrain editor hammering away at the furnace up in the mountain right now. When Deuces says it's ready to go...

Banzai.



(mppd's land bomb No. 80)

Interesting. Will have to keep an eye on it's development!

Definately keep me in the loop. This stuff is right up my alley. Grandfather served on the USS Lexington in 1941-1942 and my wife's granddad was on the USS California (Nice Tennesee class btw).

Should be some really enjoyable stuff.

Nice!

I believe Rising Sun will require one of Thirdwire titles?

Nice news! Actually I have three questions:

1- The first one is the same as empeck's question: Will it require one of the Thirdwire titles?

2- Will it include a "real" campaign? (I actually like Thirdwire's campaign system a lot)

3- Will it have multiplayer?

empeck: It will run on Strikefighters patched up to the most current level. We might also provide versions to run on any Thirdwire title. The idea is to allow new people the cheapest way in.

ricnunes: 2. We won't have Campaigns. We try to stick to choreographing exactly what happened up to a point before letting the player go to his own fate. The whole add-on is a campaign, I guess...tied to the time line of history.

3. Nope. Sorry. Too much modification for Thirdwire's multiplayer capabilities. If anyone wants to tackle that, get in touch. We will help it happen. Right now we have 30 planes to paint.

It's not really my place to answer, but I would expect Rising Sun to follow the same model as Yankee Air Pirate 2 for WOV. Meaning yes it will probably require one of the 2nd gen Thirdwire titles, no it will probably not contain a campaign in the sense of Thirdwire's semi-dynamic campaign engine, and no to multiplayer since the 2nd Gen games don't support it. If that sounds like it will scare you off, and if you haven't played YAP2 - don't run away. As zerocinco said, the YAP team doesn't really do "campaigns" in a traditional sense but they create individual missions based on the accounts of pilots who were really there. So each mission is like flying a part of an individial pilot's history. I'm not a YAP2 pro, I haven't gotten through all of the 1st mission pack yet (real life just keeps eating into my sim time along with other interests, but winter's coming!). But I will say the Yankee Air Pirate missions I have played are very, very good. I like playing TW campaign missions, but they get pretty repetetive (which is probably true of real combat missions, but we're playing a game here and we want the exciting stuff, yes?). YAP missions might not be part of a one pilot/squadron ongoing campaign, but they feel more immersive and a lot "richer" I would say.

Again, zerocinco or someone else from YAP will have the absolute answers to your questions but I would think they will follow the model of what they have done with YAP2 in Wings Over Vietnam. It's unique, the addon objects and scenery enhancements are top notch, and they do what they say - tell you the story. If Rising Sun is successful, I hope they do some European and other theater WWII stuff. And Korean War. Ok I'm dreaming now.

Edit: there you go! Started writing this before and posted after the official response.

When will it bee release and is it another arcade Simulator or a serious semi realistic Sim representing the whole of the Pacafic Theater.


I hope its another realistic Sim. We have more than our share of Arcade Sims available already.

Nice looking silver plane

Sorry my knowledge of pre-WW2 aircraft is lacking.

Dons armored vest and kevlar in preparation for the elitist who will no doubt flame the flight models.