Microsoft Flight Simulator already sounded pretty spectacular, but my anticipation is now even greater after developer Asobo revealed that you can get out of the plane, stroll through the countryside (or anywhere else) and watch the sunset in your favorite corner of this beautiful recreation of the world.
This is according to Jorge Neumann, head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, who shared the news while speaking to PC Gamer – after reiterating how many additional details are going into Flight Simulator 2024’s digital version of Earth compared to its already impressive predecessor.
For example, the team has improved the look of every airport, added glider ports, every oil rig and every lighthouse in the world. There are also “hundreds of species of animals running around,” and it also simulates “every ship on Earth” via its transponder signals – all of which, Neumann says, you can land on. “I think we’re in a new era of game development that I think will break new ground in terms of scale and complexity.”
And then there are the trees. Trees are something Neumann has talked about before, but now he says Microsoft Flight Simulator has the capacity to represent every tree on Earth. “We have a machine learning method that looks it up,” he explains, “and then we know what tree it is, even to the point where we know what species it probably is… and then we plant trees, literally trillions of trees, and it all happens at runtime, so it’s pretty damn accurate.”
But what excites me most is all this talk about getting out, because with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, you can not only be a digital tourist in the sky, but one on the ground as well. “In 2024, you can now get out of the plane and walk around,” Neumann reveals. “You can literally walk your favorite mountain trail to your favorite cabin in the mountains. Sit by the lake. Watch the sunset. It’s truly a digital twin that you can record.”
In fact, Neumann reveals one more detail that might even top the whole walking thing on the excitement scale. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, he says, won’t suck up your hard drive space like its absolutely voracious predecessor.
“In 2020, the initial install is 130GB,” he explains. “Then we have 17 world updates. If you extrapolate that, we’re at 500GB. And then there are 5,000 add-ons that people have created, which I think is two terabytes… (But) for Flight Simulator 2024, we’ve changed all that. We’ve basically gone for a thin client architecture and we’re not ready yet. We’re shipping in November, but we think we’ll be… I’d say 50GB or less, but with tons more data because we’re offloading more to the cloud.”
And Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has a lot to offer. Asobo has already confirmed that it will launch with a staggering list of activities, including aerial firefighting, search and rescue, helicopter cargo transport, air ambulances, pest control, mountain rescue, skydiving, aerial construction, cargo transport, air racing, gliding, scientific research, low-altitude training, experimental travel, airship tours, hot air ballooning, and VIP charter and executive transport services. And that’s before we even get to the planes.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will be released on November 19 for PC and Xbox Series X/S, so there’s still some time to pack a digital suitcase and prepare your flight plans.
