This is what early access should be. If you aren't familiar with the original game, then this may not be for you.
I recommend watching the old version of Memphis Belle, and getting to know the people in that plane.. then come and play this game.
This is not, and never was a WW2 fighter simulator. This is more of a crew management system, but it works really well, because you can take over any one of the positions, including the pilot.
Flying the B17 in a formation bombing run takes a different mind set. Your job is not to get up in the air quickly and shoot down a bunch of enemy aircraft.
Your job is to taxi into position, takeoff, circle to get into formation with other B17s, and circle to get up to a reasonable altitude. This takes a LOOONG TIME (of course you can speed up time).
Then you head on over to your initial point, all the while trying to avoid enemy aircraft and flak. You may still be climbing.. higher and higher.. in real life this takes several hours...
So now you are ready for your bombing run. A lot goes on here as you approach your target, setting up the norden bombsight, adjusting for wind speed and direction, aircraft speed and altitude... then.. bombs away...
So now you have to head back home and go through the same gauntlet. You can't dodge fighters.. you take what comes your way and hope you survive.
As you get back over the English coast, you hope you are safe from enemy fighters and you begin your long slow decent.. finally circling until you can land.
This game recreates that like none other. From the mission planning and reconnaissance to the after action report.
Everything is represented here, from full realistic engine operations to dud bombs. You can change what you want.
HERE ME OUT.. as this is how I play this game. It is FUN.
So read a book about a typical B17 mission or go watch the old Memphis Belle....
Then.. set this game up for the highest difficulty so that everything is simulated (engines, dud bombs, weather, etc.)..Set the enemy to a lower level if you want.. but keep the B17 at high difficulty.
Now here is the cool part. Pick a character.. So today I'm going to be the left waste gunner. That's my job. Our mission is to bomb Brest harbor.
Great. After the mission briefing, we are sent to our plane.
Now here is the really cool part. You don't have to do ANYTHING if you don't want to. The AI pilot and copilot will automatically go through all of the startup procedures. You can go to those stations, watch, and listen, to learn how it's done..
So I let the AI drive the plane.. I start out as a waste gunner, but I can move throughout the plane and take over any position. I can even take over the pilot position and as long as I don't hit the M for manual control, the computer is still controlling the plane..
So we taxi and takeoff, then circle to get into formation.. you can speed this or anything up if you want.. as we start to gain altitude sometimes you need to "help" the navigator, especially when he is green. This is simple, you go to the map and move the plane to a position on the map that you think you are at. You just look outside and see where you are.. over London? At the coast? find that spot and manually move the marker there. this helps get the navigator "smarter" and keeps your plane on course.
If you are attacked by fighters you can take over any gun if you want, or just watch the fight. The AI gunners will all fire.
Then you get to the bomb run, and again, you can simply go to that station and watch what happens, or take over (which requires learning)..
I typically "simulate" just being in the plane as one of the gunners and NOT the pilot or bombardier because I'm not good at piloting lol..
At times your crew will become wounded if you're hit by flack or fighters.. you do need to try and manage that.. you can send different members to administer first aid, or put out fires that start..
Then you begin your journey home.. maybe more flak, maybe more fighters.. you sometimes get friendlies.. and you return to base, circle to land, and report in.
ALL of this can be done (the entire mission from start to finish) without you even being there.. you can walk way and get a coffee.. beware of the risks lol.. but I've done it..
Anyway, my point about this game is that it is a simulation of what an entire B17 crew has to endure.. and you can make it as difficult as you want, and you can take over any aspect of the flight if you want.
So.. THIS is how GOOD the game was way back when, and it is STILL that good..
Except for the elephant in the room.. graphics.. so let's talk.
Back in the day.. the graphics were ok.. for that time.. of course by today's standard.. not so much.. when it comes to the outside world (view from the sky to the ground).. It looks like it did back then..
However.. the PROs
The barracks and briefing room are really good looking now.
Reading the briefs and personnel files are very nice looking. Modern graphics.
The interface is much better now, wide screen (which we did not have back then).
The interior of the B17 looks GREAT now. Every station looks just as good as you would expect in MSFS 2020 when viewed from the inside.
The characters also all look great now.
The sound is very good, not great, but as good as I remember it being.
The crew management (moving around the plane, taking over positions, assisting with first aid and fires), is VERY GOOD, as it was back then..
The overall "feel" of the game is quite good, just as it was.. a sense of accomplishment to make it through an entire bombing run and return alive!!.. You get that same anxiety when leaving and same relief when returning..
The statistics and details are second to none. Each person in your crew has a history and you track them through injuries and death. Details about your bombing missions are all there. This was a great feature of the original game.

Now for the CONs
Obviously the graphics.. outside view is pretty bad. sky is .. not great, looking at the earth isn't the best, but you CAN distinguish towns/rivers/roads so you can "see" where you are on the map by looking outside. That was a feature of the old game that is still there.. the problem is the graphics look the same.
The sound sometimes will cut out briefly.. not often but just for a second.. otherwise it's ok
The outside view of the B17, while not super, is actually not bad.. Seeing the other B17's in formation is just amazing.. you can see all of them each turning their turrets.. but I imagine the models could use an upgrade.

It IS the game I remember, but better. Again, if you never experienced this game, you may not like it at first glance.

So.. for me this game already does what I want. I like to simulate a B17 "career" to see if I can survive 25 missions. I may play as a pilot, a bombardier, or just a tail gunner.. you have a "life story"..

Note : Don't buy this game if you want to play fighters. YES the game allows it, but you will be disappointed. As far as I'm concerned, I wish the devs would remove the players ability to switch to a fighter. It's pointless in my view lol. but I digress.

If you want to "feel" what it was like to go on a long B17 mission, or to be placed on a B17 because you're short and they need ball turret gunners.. the anxiety, fear, it's all there.. even with the graphics.. There is not another game that does this.

So.. this game is Early Access.. but think about the potential!!!! it is already a great game.. if they can fix up some of the graphics .. just.. wow..
I realize that you never know how these things are going to turn out, I have no idea if Microprose is the same company.... I'm sure the devs from back then are all gone.. but if they keep the spirit going.. and upgrade this game, I think it will be a huge hit with World War 2 fans.

You really can't go wrong with this price. Give it a try.. be patient.. enjoy the story line.

Sorry for the long post and I hope you enjoy this game.

So a quick story: I was on my 4th or 5th mission in my first play through controlling a single bomber (the game also offers the ability to play as a squadron commander in charge of 12 planes. I haven't tried that mode yet).

My target is the Hoesch Oil Refinery in Dortmand....Germany. My first one hitting the Reich. Most of the mission I am going to be getting hit with fighters, so tensions are high. I'm role playing as the plane's bombardier. The long flight to the target is...contested, but surprisingly, our flight makes it through with no losses. We're a bit banged up, but everyone is present to put bombs on target.

Again, I'm the bombardier in the lead plane of the formation, so everyone is depending on me to drop accurately. I switch to manual control, adjust the bomb sights and the time comes to drop. Bombs away! I switch to target view to see what is about to happen. I see the shadows of my formation come over and the bombs start impacting. Direct hit! Damage assessment should be "Totally Destroyed" for sure. I'm pumped. I hadn't put that many bombs on target before. I take a minute or two to celebrate and switch to external camera to enjoy the view and let the computer control my character on the chin turret for a bit.

I then witness something. Something that sold this game to me. Despite the bugs, clunkiness, missing features (Early Access will clean that up given time), this one thing sold me on this game.

A fighter gets a lucky hit on the Memphis Belle's far port engine. The plane takes a sharp nose up and to the left posture, as I assume the pilot struggles to control the plane. She starts to roll, goes belly up and smacks right through the waist section of the Maximum Effort. An explosion ensues and what is left of both planes start hurtling to the ground. It happended in less than 3 or 4 seconds. I quickly adjust the manual view so I can see the wrecks as they fall. I find myself saying, "C'mon, c'mon bail out!" There's 20 guys in those planes, surely someone survived. One chute opens. Then two and three. Four, five and six come in quick succession. Seven comes a bit later and then finally eight. No more came.

20 guys, 8 chutes. 12 KIA. I know it's just a game and these aren't real people, but holy crap the horror of watching that in a game and the heart wrenching panic I felt willing those guys to bail out sure felt real. I was just dazed the rest of the mission. It goes without saying that tragedies like that played out in real life over the skies of Europe 80 years ago made it all the more tragic and any game that can give of small, minute, tiny window of what that may have felt like to witness is a winner in my book.

I played the GoG version and also now this one too.

Firstly read through the Why Early Access? And all the details laid out, most questions can be answered there, including current features and whats to come.


Pro's
Works on Linux using Proton Experimental, no issues getting into the game and running as far as current bugs allow. Previous version had issues when going to the radio operator to begin mission as it simply wouldn't work.
I saw one report of it working on Steam Deck so far.
Immersive. One of the lost features on a game like this is how you can become attached to the crew and immersed in their tour. Will they all survive 25? Will you be the cause of their loss? Will you on the other hand save them and end their tour at 25? Or will they simply be unlucky?

Con's.

It is an old game, I literally forgot it was made at a time when mice were sold with two buttons, a left and right button, which is why zoom is "hold right button and move forward/back". There was no middle scroll wheel around then!

It did pick up my Alpha Yoke, but the downside to this is that is also links the pitch and roll to how the bomb Norden bombsight tracks as well as the guns. You can select a different button to fire the guns and cannons (I am assuming the cannons refer to the fighters, which should be coming at a later date). I put this as a con, if you only have a mouse tracking the targets isn't very good. A gamepad (not tried it though) or joystick would be better.

There a lot of bugs at time of writing, and I noticed the taxi training mission seems to be currently removed compared to the Gog one. It did have a bug though.

If you're offended by the external graphics, and yeah they are pretty nasty for 2024 (things were different in pre-boomer days...) then maybe wait until they patch those in and give it a shot.

Can you get a fair assessment within the 2 hour window? Yes. Not much going on and not much to configure, just some controls and the graphic settings. They are set to balanced when you first launch. Finally its figuring out the basic controls, getting a basic idea on how things work. Learn to fly a bit (I never considered this a full pilot experience like other flight sims, its more crew management closer to reality than a flightsim, but the B-17 is believable), figure out how navigation works. In a nutshell your navigator starts out as a miracle on how he got his position, you need to go to external view, look around and then jump back into the navigators map, from there you can move the B-17 icon closer to where it needs to be. Only do this when he lost...All this can be ascertained enough in the 2 hour window imho.

Overall I do recommend it, but only if you're OK with early access and the fact its a much older game from when we had mice with two buttons....

Some quick background for those who stumbled on this. The developers and publishers of this game are not at all the original MicroProse of the 90/2000's. This is just some dingus that bought up the IP, hired some developers, and started announcing a dozen and a half different games. Unfortunately, they have seemingly bitten off more than they can chew, and are having cash flow problems evidenced by numerous shovelware cashgrab releases that have occurred recently, and this is the latest example of just that. All of the "big" or "good" games that are supposedly in development have stopped releasing developer diaries, and the one holy grail that was announced 3 years ago (the B17 VR game) only JUST recently showed it's first visuals, and all they did was drive a jeep up to a parked B17 that looked like ♥♥♥♥. That's 3 YEARS after announcement. The other big title that's strongly anticipated and wishlisted, Task Force: Admiral, hasn't had a dev diary since Q2 or Q3 2023. Community Managers haven't been active on social media in like, 10 months.

This isn't a Remaster, or a refresh, or even a redux. The extent of what has been "improved" are internal bomber textures, briefing area textures, and that's about it frankly. Sure, the game runs better and natively on 16/9, but it's still so clunky that it's like they haven't even done anything meaningful but shipped in the interest of some desperately needed cashflow.

Some issues:
-They removed the intro movie which was a masterpiece for this game.
-You cannot fly "little friends" or interceptors like you could in the main game. You just cant select them.
-The interface is still the crappy one that released with the game 20ish years ago. It's awful.
-None of the internal B17 textures have been touched up meaningfully. Cockpits still look like they're from 1998, gunsights don't line up, there's no FOV adjustment, there's hardly any control sensitivity customization, and the game just feels jank af.
-Texture pop-in is ATROCIOUS. Which is hilarious because most of them are like 16bit at best.
-Optimization is horrid. My i9-9900KS/3080Ti/64gb of RAM was getting frame stutters all over the place.
-Sounds haven't been refreshed at all.
-Briefing and mission planning tools are all borked.

This is a bad game, and MicroProse is very quickly eroding our confidence in their ability to release meaningfully good games. Like I said before, I'm pretty confident the executive team, if there is one, bit of way more than he could chew and now he's desperate for funding to keep the company above water. The result: shovelware cashgrabs like this.

I grew up playing this game.
I was hoping there would be improved menus at the very least. The user interface is the same as the original game and it's absolutely terrible.
This is nearly a 1:1 copy of the original game with higher resolution textures. To be selling the game at this point really concerns me as to what this new "MicroProse" is really up to.
I truly hope they make some good games as a ton of the upcoming projects are up my alley, but so far it really does look like a money grab for legitimacy by purchasing the name of a company that made really great games for the time.

I will start by saying: I recommend this only if you played the original. If you don't have that experience, I don't think you'll enjoy this as much because it is very much a game from 23 years ago.

Let me set the scene for you. It's the beginning of 2001. Your dad got you a gift certificate to Babbage's for your birthday (also there's Babbage's and not GameStop). You pick up this game. It's in a box nearly as big as the ones cereal comes in. The screenshots on the back of the box look incredible, look at how real the explosions look! Look at how detailed the nose compartment is! Oh my god, you can fly a P-51?! You look at the system requirements printed on the bottom of the now quaintly-oversized box.

Windows 95/98/Me? Check.
Pentium II 400MHz? Check.
700MB of free hard drive space? Ooof, might have to uninstall Driver: You are the Wheelman.
Glad we got that ATI Rage 128 a while back! This game is going to ride it hard and put it away wet judging by those screenies!

You install this game on your Windows Me computer, you boot it up in 800x600 resolution, and you lose hours and hours. You run way more than the 25-mission tour of duty over the course of the next few months. You bomb Germany so dang much you don't even need the navigator's headings anymore: I know right where the Eurotank oil refinery is in Hamburg, thank you very much.

Almost exactly 23 years ago, I bought this game largely as I described above. I bought it again shortly after my birthday in January of 2024 with much less ceremony: no dad, no oversized PC game box, no trip to the mall, no Babbage's. Just an email from Valve, a few clicks, and about 16 bucks on a credit card. Utterly unremarkable experience, until I booted it up.

This is exactly the same game I played 23 years ago. Maybe not exactly the same, it effortlessly runs in 4K, something I think I took for granted until it all came rushing back with the clunky menu that itself is part of the setting and experience. I legit just searched for 800x600 images just to remind myself of the massive difference. 800x600 was such a huge deal to me in the year 2000, then 1024x768 not long after. 3840x2160? Those aren't real numbers! Seriously, look at this[upload.wikimedia.org]. We played flight sims and shooters and racers and cRPG's with fewer pixels than I have fingers just 23 years ago, and it all looked so real. Just look at the specular highlights on the implied-polished-aluminum skin of your B-17G! How could anything ever look more real than this?

Obviously, the game looks incredibly dated these days. Redux is a total anachronism in a time when I've played thousands of hours of DCS and MSFS in VR. Redux isn't anywhere in that league, but the gameplay totally holds-up. The crew management during the mission, the ability to take over any job on the fort, the sheer terror of the bombing run through thick flak you could step out and walk on--my suspension of disbelief came right back just as it was in 2001 and it took only a handful of sprites and polygons to do it. I fell completely in again and I just simply didn't want to play anything else. I should add that I am not one to play retro games. Revisiting past video game loves has always been a bad time for me, looking at them with more experienced eyes destroys the illusion for me. I am one to depend on immersion in anything I play, and to have this game, 23 years later, in largely the same state I left it, sink its hooks in so easily? I think it says a whole lot about the core idea and execution. It's truly timeless.

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

I believe this was released to take advantage of the Masters of the Air show as it is in terrible, worse than early access, shape.
I played the original B-17 Flying Fortress and it was fun and stable, of course they had to release a Gold hard copy disk, and not hide behind "Well it's early access." Well you are not writing from scratch, you are breaking code that worked.
Can I recommend this Steam(ing) pile in this state? No..

TL;DR: Supposedly it's Abandonware but I'm going to keep an eye on the Microprose discord sever to see if the developer comes back to this. For now I am requesting a refund just in case the game remains in the state it is now.

Yet another instance of a small developer(s) biting off way more than they can chew, which is disturbingly in character for New-Microprose and many of their games.

Its a revamped version of the old school flight simulator of the same name that came out two decades ago. Some of the main selling points of this version of the game is new 3d models and interior views that help overhaul the ancient look of the game. Further more, there are supposedly numerous bug fixes and "QoL" features that have been amended into the game's code that is intended to make this simulator more accessible to a modern audience.

Being a flight simulator nerd, I understood completely that in order to enjoy this simulator, a significant amount of time would need to be invested into reading the included game manual. I will say that this particular manual is rather streamlined for this genre of simulator coming out at around 200 pages. This sounds daunting but I come from a world where the average simulator I invest my time in can have manuals that reach counts of 400 to 1000 pages so I wasn't intimidated. My frustration began the moment I started the tutorials in game and found that many of the in-game lesson content directly contradicted how the game's own manual said it would play out.

This led me to browsing the games discord channel to see what the deal was with this discrepancy which only led me to discover many other users voicing their concerns and general displeasure with how the development of this game was coming along. The announcement channel hasn't been posted on by a moderator since September of last year to announce an update and furthermore it seems that whoever is developing the game is completely absent from the general discussions. I searched for an hour looking for an official post from anyone with a developer role and I was hard pressed to find a single post. Big red flag.

I saw numerous posts from other users on the official discord talking about the lack of progress from the developers, old 20 year old bugs from the original build that are still present today, and the general absence of the developers from any of the official channels. This really didn't paint a good look for this game.

I decided to bail out while I could and request a refund before I regretted my decision of buying this game. Its a bummer too because there aren't many (if at all) simulators similar to this on the market. I'll keep an eye on this one to see if the updates start rolling out again and the developers start interacting with their customers more, but for now I cannot recommend this simulator.

Don't get me wrong, I have and always will love B-17: The Mighty 8th, but at the time I just can't recommend this redux, and yes, I know it's early access and hopefully has a long, bright future ahead, at which point I will change my stance.

To start with the good, the new interior and crewman models look PHENOMENAL! The avatars for the characters are also pretty cool too, though it would be nice to see enlisted men and officers have their pictures separated accordingly in the future, or even to pick whichever one you like instead of having them randomly tossed up. A few of the tutorial missions are also guided now, which is a huge help, however...

As of 2/3/2024, this game is still plagued with a ton of issues - many of the ones that existed in the original Mighty 8th, and some new. The guided tutorial missions are great, but for some reason the take off one is extremely buggy in that you cannot move the camera or perform other actions that would make passing it a breeze. The other features, such as bombing, also need a guided tutorial, but I assume that is coming. Most stuff seems to work as intended during campaign missions, but that is where a lot of the old demons from 2000 rear their heads; the map view still suffers from the buggy B-17 icon flipping out all over the place, the engines still emit black smoke after skipping time on occasion which will scare new players unfamiliar with the bug into returning to base, and the there's the crashes... I have not completed a single mission just from the sheer number of crashes I get. Time skip seems to increase the chances of crashing, which is disastrous. Because I get that it's a simulator game, but most people cannot commit the time to sit through an entire 10+ hour bombing mission over Occupied Europe because unfortunately these things called real life responsibilities exist. I really hope that gets fixed soon, and honestly I'd welcome a fix of bugs before "prettying up" the graphics even more.

Again, not trying to sound down on this game. I really loved the original when I could actually get it to work, and I also love what the devs are doing and can tell they're really passionate about the World War Two strategic bombing campaign. I just think you should sleep on this one until it's a bit more finished, that's all!

It may not be as good as the original, but it is, for the most part, a 1:1 remaster, and it has proper widescreen support and works on my multi-monitor setup, and that's all that matters to me. I recommend this if you can't get the original B-17 Flying Fortress to work on a modern machine.