“Microsoft Flight Simulator” lets everyone play a role as a pilot and fly anywhere in the world, exploring highly realistic sights along the way.
In the game, players start by selecting an escape route, which typically starts on a runway. Just like in real life, players reach liftoff by gaining momentum, and once in the air, they must balance speed and momentum while avoiding obstacles such as buildings. There are options to skip parts of a flight or speed up flight time to destinations all over the world, but part of the fun is checking out the scenery when you are on the go.
The new version, which starts at $ 59.99 with additional costs for additional planes and airports, will be released August 18 for both Windows and Xbox. The new live weather feature provides additional challenges when navigating the skies. For example, a storm that recently passed through the East Coast in real life was also seen in the game.
Players who have watched the game in advance have already uploaded YouTube videos of their flight alongside skyscrapers in New York City, Chernobyl and even North Korea, among other locations that may not be accessible during the ongoing real-life pandemic.
“I’ve been in this house since March; I can’t really fly anywhere. I feel like the world might be shrinking a little bit … [the shutdown] had a psychological impact, “Jorg Neumann, head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, told CNN Business. But in ‘Flight Sim’, he traveled to Texas, Nepal and parts of Africa.
The game includes 37,000 airports, 1.5 billion buildings and 2 trillion trees – part of the reason it needs a whopping 150 GB to install. It contains 2 petabytes of satellite and aerial photography, but it runs on cloud streaming to keep the file size manageable.
Neumann is not a pilot, but he said he is and his team to ask feedback from a community of pilots as fans, and some of his team members have taken flight lessons.
While the new ‘Flight Sim’ is not simplified for beginners, there is a new checklist system that helps players figure out what needs to be completed so they can safely lift up. It may be intimidating for newcomers to master the various controls and unfamiliar terminology such as jock and throttle, but the game offers tutorials and autopilot features for more complex tasks such as landing on water.
“Instead of dumping the physical of the flight … we help you fly the plane, [and make it] physically accurate, “Neumann said.
This is the first new installation of the game since 2006’s “Flight Simulator X”, and Microsoft said so has plans to serve this new game to many years.
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