Just when you thought there couldn’t be more to explore from a simulator that’s mapped the entire world, Microsoft is set to deliver Flight Simulator 2024 with new elements, modes, graphical enhancements, ship traffic, glider rigs, and new animal species.
While Microsoft has been toying with its Flight Simulator franchise for over four decades, it hasn’t been until last few years that the game has seen an uptick in broader interest from more than flight students and ardent enthusiasts. Thanks in part to a 2020 reintroduction of the franchise that brought immersive graphical fidelity paired with real-world accuracy supported by Bing Maps, Microsoft has been able to deliver an unmatched simulation experience that’s seen close to 15 million players take the game for a ride.
In Flight Simulator 2024, Microsoft is looking to build on this momentum by adding new elements to the game that include a worldwide Aviation Career mode, a white-knuckle challenge League system, new World Photographer mode, the first-ever implementation of helipads, glider airports, oil rigs, vertical obstructions for greater difficulty, adding dozes of additional animal species to observe.
Career System
Similar to career modes in sports games, users can start a career as pilot from any airport on the planet and engage with the mundane process of piloting such as pre-flight procedures, logging flight paths, various mission objectives and more. The career system utilizes a tree of progression similar to other role-playing games, all used to track the various certifications achieved over time. For the more exciting aspects of piloting, specializations help to unlock a broader variety of missions that can include Search and Rescue, Commercial Flights, Firefighting in harsh conditions, and more.
You can pick any single airport on the planet and start your career there, which means that you are going to take your lessons at this location. Your first job can be anywhere, and I mean anywhere, in the world. You will start as a rookie pilot and meet a mentor who will explain to you how the career works and guide you through the very first steps in the career.
CCO of Asobo Studio David Dedeine
In the Career System, players can go from single hobbyist dreams to eventually managing a fleet as they navigate income and business decisions down the road.
Microsoft also claims that the virtual environments in Flight Simulator 2024 have been improved by “a factor of 4,000”.
We can basically get every rock on Earth now; it’s unbelievable. We updated the aerial imagery for the entire world, and we set up a team of specialists that gather digital elevation maps from across the planet. The result of these last four years of work is that we now have an unprecedented level of ground detail. Nobody else has anything like this.
Jorg Neumann head of Microsoft Fight Simulator
Fortunately, these improvements to the game aren’t going to tax your local drives as they have in the past. Microsoft is leveraging Azure to deliver a roughly 30GB sized experience to start with initially while the rest is piped in via cloud streaming technology. Flight Simulator will work in real time to manage both high and low-quality mesh downloads as players travel from destination to destination.
Microsoft will offer Flight Simulator in a variety of editions at differing price points on November 19, 2024, that include the Standard Edition that covers 70 aircrafts and 150 upgraded airports. Flight Simulator Deluxe Edition will include an additional 10 aircrafts than the SE version as well as five more airports. A Premium Deluxe Edition of Flight Simulator 2024 will boast another 15 more aircrafts for a total of 95, while the Aviator Edition of the game will have all the airplanes released since the 2020 game release for a total of 125 different planes to play with as well as all of the above additions to the game.
Pilots can pre-order the following Editions now:
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 – Aviator Edition
Xbox Game Studios
$199.99
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 – Premium Deluxe Edition
Xbox Game Studios
$129.99
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 – Deluxe Edition
Xbox Game Studios
$99.99
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 – Standard Edition
Xbox Game Studios
$69.99
