Microsoft’s Flight Simulator gets official release date, new gameplay, + more

The latest entry in Microsoft’s long-running Flight Simulator now has an official date to go alongside today’s launch trailer. Now scheduled for launch this summer, the upcoming Flight Simulator will have players soaring over more than 2 million cities, new day/night technology, and a sort of scalable difficulty to support beginner pilots. Head below for more details and closer look at today’s trailer.

Microsoft’s Flight Simulator

For those unfamiliar, Flight Simulator is a realistic flight simulation game that has been running steadily since 1982 or so. Birthed at a time when Microsoft’s stable of apps were almost solely focused on business solutions, the now 37-year-old sim is one of the longest-running and most comprehensive of its type. The upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator is a follow-up to 2014’s Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition.

Travel the world and experience over 2 million cities and expansive environments from mountains down to roads, trees, rivers, animals, traffic, and more. From light planes to wide-body jets, test your piloting skills and experience the challenges of night flying, real-time atmospheric simulation and live weather in a dynamic and living world.

Flight Simulator is coming this summer

The upcoming Flight Simulator is essentially the same hardcore experience you remember, but with some enhanced tech and visuals throughout. As you can tell from the game’s official description above, players will be taking to the skies over 2 million+ cities and a wide range of biomes. New day and night technology is in place here that supports flights at any time along with the expected slew of real-time data including traffic, wildlife, and more.

One thing Flight Simulator has never really been is easy. This is not an arcade-style flying game. Normally only really for those interested in a hardcore and detailed pilot experience, the developers are introducing some new features that could make the game more accessible. A new checklist system can limit the amount of tasks required by the player for a given flight, which in turn acts as a scalable difficulty setting. It still sounds like it’s going to be a pretty hardcore experience either way, but novice pilots should be able to ease themselves into it all a bit easier this way.

Microsoft’s Flight Simulator is now scheduled for release on August 18, 2020. Pre-orders on Windows 10 or Xbox Game Pass for PC pre-installs are available now. There are three versions of the game that vary in price and to which the number of planes/airports players will have access. The standard version at $59.99 includes 20 planes and 30 airports, with the deluxe variant adding an additional five planes and air ports for $89.99. Jumping up to the premium deluxe edition will run you $119.99 and bring another 10 planes and airports into the mix.

9to5Toys’ Take

Flight Simulator games certainly aren’t for everyone, but it is nice to see Microsoft adding some interesting accessibility checklist features into the experience. Even those interested in getting in to a game like this might have struggled previously, but this will hopefully ease that process even more. As for the pricing structure here, there’s nothing overly nefarious at play, although it might have been nice to offer a way to earn the extra content in-game somehow. New players aren’t going to like this, but it is safe to say Flight Simulator is in a bit of a class of its own and should likely have a price to reflect that in some way or other. 

Source: The Verge

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