Review: ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024’

There’s a great deal to be excited about.

In the four years since the launch of Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) in August 2020, the development team responsible for the undertaking has been quietly and rapidly growing its capabilities and intentionally expanding the team as it prepares to launch the most advanced and audacious Microsoft simulator software product in the 40-plus-year-old franchise. 

The team invited nearly 100 content creators and journalists to a small resort near the southern rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona in early September to provide an early access viewing of MSFS2024.

Jorg Neumann, head of MSFS, explained that the Grand Canyon was chosen for its incredible scenery and rich visual detail, not to mention it also features a wide variety of real-world flying activities in the area, including sightseeing tours, search and rescue missions, aerial firefighting, and general aviation/civilian aircraft operations conducted out of the Grand Canyon National Park Airport (KGCN), a small Class D facility in Tusayan, Arizona. 

With both the real and digital version of the Grand Canyon as the backdrop to introduce MSFS2024, we were provided a helicopter tour over the expanse of the canyon, and then I took a similar flight in MSFS2024 to compare the real with the digital experience so that I could see firsthand the advancements in mapping, rendering, and lighting.

As many sim pilots will find out on November 19, when MSFS2024 officially launches, the Grand Canyon was—amazingly—not given any special treatment in terms of visual rendering. The updated mapping technique, using the Microsoft tech stack—a combination of machine learning, AI, and Bing maps fed by more detailed satellite imagery—all combined to output an even more realistic-looking world than MSFS2020. 

After an hour of exploring MSFS2024 at our own flight simulator station, we had a Q&A session with Neumann, and a fellow flight sim journalist asked what was the most important action that he specifically took to make the project a reality.

Neumann surprised many by answering, “Listening.” 

Neumann explained that the act of listening to the flight sim community over the last four years provided him and his team with the road map for the feature set of MSFS2024. He went further to share that such engagement fueled the creation of the mantra, “By the community, for the community.”

Whereas MSFS2020 was built by a team of 100, MSFS2024 is, by comparison, a “communal product,” built by many hundreds of employees. 

In the four years since MSFS2020 launched, the community built more than 5,000 official MSFS Marketplace items with thousands more items hosted on enthusiast websites such as Flightsim.to available to the community.

Neumann explained how the flight sim community helped to set the development path for MSFS2024, calling it the “most ambitious flight simulation undertaking” ever attempted. And based on what he and the leadership team at MSFS shared, I believe his characterization is correct.  

For example, no flight simulation software has ever had the support of a software development team of more than 800 people, working in locations around the world and collectively responsible for the delivery of MSFS2024.

As an example of how deep the development talent is in the MSFS community, Neumann and his team handpicked some of the best developers to work on MSFS2024—identified by their contributions to MSFS2020—and brought them in as official development partners.  

Important to know is that MSFS2024 is a brand-new software entity, designed from the ground up to be expandable and more user friendly, with many software components that will be streamed down from the cloud—an enormous improvement over having to load up from your local hard drive. That alone makes MSFS2024 a decidedly separate product from MSFS2020. Any reader who’s sat through the enormous software download and long updates will relate.  

Exploring around the menu system in the test version of MSFS2024, I noticed that the user interface of menus and options looked familiar but speedier in their response time. MSFS2024 solves many gripes, challenges, and problems that sim pilots experienced with the 2020 offering. It has also been designed to bring in new pilots, widening the top of the funnel, by making MSFS2024 less intimidating to try, lowering the barrier to entry for the curious and casual flight sim fans who want to explore their world digitally.

One goal of MSFS2024 is to allow both sets of sim pilots, from the dedicated to the neophyte, to operate within the simulator and never need to interact with each other. Therefore, no new features dilute the simulator for those of us real-world pilots and experienced sim pilots that demand realism. We can still easily turn off assist modes and enjoy the simulation experience when the crosswinds pick up unexpectedly on short final.

With improved aircraft flight models, better aircraft systems modeling, and many other must-haves, the development team hopes to justify the purchase of the title with the extensive revamp that is MSFS2024. 

Christopher Burnett, co-founder of Working Title Simulations, a development studio under the MSFS umbrella that’s responsible for aircraft systems improvements and avionics systems modeling, called MSFS2024 the “most realistic piloting experience” available to flight simulator pilots today.

Here are just some of the new features, improvements, and systems coming to MSFS2024.

The first and most important detail of any new flight simulator is how many new aircraft will be there for us to fly when we load into the sim for the first time.

Even though there is an active community of aircraft builders serving the MSFS community, new aircraft included in the opening packages is still an important accomplishment for a flight simulator launch. Most—if not all—aircraft from MSFS2020 will be included and upgraded to take full advantage of the improved systems modeling of MSFS2024. Additional new GA aircraft will be added to MSFS2024, including the Beechcraft King Air C90, Cessna 404, Stemme S12 motor glider, and Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet.

Adventure pilot Mike Patey approved a licensed digital version of his now-famous bushplane Draco as a surprise addition to MSFS2024 as well as many updated GA aircraft from the MSFS2020 hangar. 

New to MSFS2024, lighter-than-air aircraft such as blimps and hot-air balloons have been modeled and can be flown. For business jets, the Cessna Citation CJ4 and Citation Longitude have both undergone extensive systems modeling, bringing them closer to “study-level” aircraft like the ATR-42 and ATR-72 already available in MSFS2020.

New airliners joining MSFS2024 include the Boeing 737, Airbus A321, and Airbus A330. Four special transport aircraft, recognizable to airplane enthusiasts worldwide, will make their debut in MSFS2024 are the Boeing 747 Dreamlifter, Boeing C-17, Airbus A400M, and Airbus Beluga.

The development team hinted in the MSFS2024 video trailer that pilots will get to experience most of the new aircraft in the context of the new career mode that allows the aspiring sim pilot the chance to fly successively more challenging transport missions. 

To build the most realistic piloting experience possible, Burnett, who is an instrument-rated pilot, said he prioritized the improvements to the avionics and navigation systems on all sim aircraft so that those systems could be connected to the revamped aircraft systems.

Burnett explained that the underlying aircraft systems needed to be added so that new crew-alerting system (CAS) messages could be displayed, allowing the pilot to take additional corrective actions when required. Since all included aircraft underwent extensive system upgrades, including hydraulics modeling, electrical circuits, and working circuit breakers, the sim pilot will have more immersive experiences when interacting with their aircraft.

Modeled mechanical systems such as engines will experience oil burn, tire wear, and braking system wear. The systems are not yet persistent across the flight simulator, meaning every time you load into a new free-play flight session, the aircraft will be starting as new. However, wear and tear is modeled in parts of the new career mode.

One major new system feature is that each aircraft in the sim will include a new electronic flight bag (EFB) that will help pilots with preflight activities such as pulling chocks, removing covers, closing doors, and managing ground power units (GPU) and in-aircraft auxiliary power units (APU). In addition, the EFB will allow the pilot to flight plan, selecting the route and waypoints along the way.

There is a moving map display included as well, so navigating from the EFB will be possible. I plan to continue using ForeFlight paired to my flight simulator, but the EFB is another tool that exposes new pilots to the tech used in today’s flight schools and professional flight environments.

The details of the aircraft systems modeling are quite impressive. Take the venerable Garmin 530W, ubiquitous in the general aviation fleet.

We were shown how many systems were modeled to allow for some robust real-world avionics behavior that will be buried within the simulator but still impact the gameplay experience, all in pursuit of modeling how the real-life systems behave.

For example, take the Cessna 172 with a Garmin GNS530W. The team at Working Title Simulations elected to model the page in 530W that shows the strength and location of the GPS satellites in orbit near the airplane, which will change depending on where you are flying in the world. 

The satellite modeling was based on the real-world satellite orbits, so that there will be some places in the world—during certain times—when the satellite coverage will not be strong enough to permit certain types of approaches from being available in the navigation system. This demonstrates the systems-on-top-of-systems approach used by the development team to model and simulate the complexity of these real systems working together.

The additional pathways modeled in the aircraft avionics systems will continue to challenge and delight simulator pilots seeking the highest levels of realism. 

Avionics weren’t the only simulator components improved in MSFS2024.

Neumann directed the development team to “focus on making the ground in MSFS2024 as detailed as the air.” This improvement began with increasing the ground modeling (or polygon count, in the language of flight simulation) to be of such high resolution as to allow for undulations in pavement, uneven surfaces, and surfaces of different grip level.

Developers used AI (specifically machine learning) to guess the surface of the ground it was placing into MSFS2024. The result is that aircraft tires will now have higher fidelity interactions with surfaces such as sand, pebbles, rocks, boulders, and trees, which will bring a much more varied experience to bush pilots landing on unimproved areas such as river beds, fields, and mountainsides. 

Snow will be modeled such that airplane tires will sink into it, leaving tracks, and tall grass will be compacted leaving a path behind the tires from where the airplane touched down. So if you’re assessing a riverbed for suitability to land, any boulder you see will be a surface that can bend your airplane. 

Seasons will change in MSFS2024 with many more tree varieties, so that vegetation will look correct for the part of the world where you are flying. Fields used for farming will have crop heights that change with the season, snow amounts will be modeled more accurately, and leaf colors will change correctly and appropriately. Hundreds of different types of animals will populate the land within the simulation and be placed in the correct regions where they live.

All of this detail was attended to so that pilots can get more joy exploring the world.  

Wake turbulence is a new flight environment feature included in MSFS2024. “It requires you to pay attention to it and consider it when you’re in your airplane,” said Sebastian Wloch, CEO and co-founder of Asobo Studios, the development team tasked with these specific environmental improvements.

The energy of the wake turbulence will last up to six minutes in the simulator, so realistic wait times for dissipation will be worth considering. And as in the real world, the wake turbulence will sink to the ground, flowing outward and will drift with the wind. Lift in ground effect has also been modeled, so that pilots can expect more accurate aircraft behavior during the roundout phase of landing. 

Soft surface modeling is new for MSFS2024 as well and includes the full frame parachutes in aircraft with that equipment, such as the Cirrus SR and Vision Jet. This means if the parachute is deployed, it should exhibit more realistic behavior, being pushed by the winds aloft while floating down to the ground.

The model that controls the standing bodies of water in the simulator has been improved, smoke from ground or engine fires have also been added, as well as high altitude cirrus clouds have been incorporated to round out the improvements to the simulation environment. 

A total of 160 major airports have been upgraded from their MSFS2020 versions to include correct line markings on the ground and a more realistic variety of on-airport ground vehicles.

The team also tackled challenging high detail issues such as airport line markings. This is one of the many detail enhancements made possible by the combination of satellite imagery, machine learning used to identify the lines and surfaces, and storing this enormous detail level in the cloud. The simulator will stream what ground-level detail you need from the cloud, so that you don’t have to store this on your PC. This is coupled with a tool that will throttle up or down the detail level near and on the ground to allow your PC to maintain a minimum frames per second performance so the simulator will run smoothly.

All airports around the world receive the upgraded airport ground textures too.

Wloch announced that all airport lighting around the world has been updated in MSFS2024 to have more realistic brightness, intensity, warmth, and color. The night screenshots we saw during the preview presentation demonstrated this dramatic visual improvement, giving the airport and buildings around the immediate airport area a more realistic appearance.

Microsoft partnered with the well-known flight tracking software FlightAware to provide real-time airline arrivals and departures, visible to the sim pilot in the free-play menu, in the airport information tab. With “live-traffic” turned on, MSFS2020 already populates these arrivals and departures in the sim, but MSFS2024 will have additional liveries and aircraft types, with nearly 100 different airliner models and new airline liveries to match the traffic, which will update every few minutes.

For rotor-wing pilots, Neumann announced the inclusion of every official heliport in the world, nearly 80,000 in all. And more than 2,000 glider ports around the world will be a new feature of MSFS2024, many complete with custom artwork based on photos and satellite data, including custom-built winch equipment found at some ports. 

In response to feedback from the flight sim community, the development team built a comprehensive career mode with the goal of lowering the barrier to entry for this hobby.

For casual enthusiasts who have never been to a real flight school, a small airport, or in a real GA airplane, this career function serves as an introductory pathway where the fledgling sim pilot will choose a location for their flying journey to begin at one of the hundreds of local airports around MSFS2024. 

Pilots will choose their starting location and then be led through basic exercises and familiarization in the form of an interactive narrative complete with the new pilot clicking around the airplane under the guidance of the flight instructor.

After completing the components of the preflight check, they will launch into an abbreviated version of a private pilot training. The pilot will need to pass small tests within the simulator in order to move on to the next training elements. 

The pilot can select their specialty as they progress in learning, selecting instrument training, then moving onto multiengine training and up to turbine engine operations if they choose. Once the minimum training is completed, they can begin selecting missions such as banner, towing, aircraft ferrying, crop dusting, search and rescue, executive transport, cargo flights, and much more.

You can specialize as you progress in your career, including the purchasing of airplanes to start your own airline. Over time, missions completed will pay incrementally higher, allowing the pilot to accrue more funds for larger aircraft.  

In career mode, the wear and tear of the aircraft will come into play, with pilots needing to afford mechanical repairs to aircraft systems that fall out of airworthiness.

If you redline the engine rpm for a full flight, blow a tire, or have a hard landing that damages the aircraft, you’ll need to pay for it out of your career mode bank account, funds that accrue as you successfully complete missions. If you crash an airplane, you’ll have to pay for that too.

With over 3 million different potential combinations of career modes in missions, it is enough to keep anyone busy on their virtual flying career.

But that’s not all.

There are other more casual experiences offered within career mode. A new challenge mode will offer pilots the chance to compete against each other with an emphasis on fun and performance, with short two-to-10 minute engagements. Most of the assembled journalists at the MSFS2024 preview attempted to outfly one another in the A-10 Warthog on a low altitude rip through the Appalachian Mountains. All of us in the same room trying to best each other to the top spot on the leaderboard was a highlight of the preview experience. 

Finally, a mode called world photographer offers the chance to try your hand as an air-to-air photographer with your images scored based on how many requested elements make it into your photo submission. If you have an eye for photography and are seeking a more casual experience in-sim, you can marshal your creative skills to capture the most compelling image. 

Challenge and world photographer modes provide chances to have more casual interactions with MSFS2024 that are still fun and engaging, giving the pilot new activities to try if they are pressed for time or looking for an excuse to explore the digital world. These modes will only add to the potential enjoyment of the title. 

Not covered in our media preview was a long-awaited feature of replay mode, which we are expecting will be in MSFS2024.

Personally, I am hoping for improved interoperability between MSFS2024 and flight sim hardware since the MSFS2020 menu system and hardware interactions left a lot to be desired. Near the top of my personal wishlist is a simplified system for optimizing the graphics settings. I’m careful not to demand simplicity from a complex system that can be tailored to your specific computer’s operating system, but going deep into the graphics settings remains above my experience level.

Like most pilots, I want to focus my limited spare time on flying. 

Much like MSFS2020, sim pilots will have the option to purchase the following packages that come with different loadouts of new aircraft, upgraded aircraft, and upgraded airports: 

• The Standard package includes 70 aircraft (30 new MSFS2024 aircraft and 40 upgraded MSFS2020 aircraft) and 150 upgraded airports. 

• The Deluxe package includes 80 aircraft (35 new MSFS2024 aircraft and 45 upgraded MSFS2020 aircraft) and 155 upgraded airports. 

• The Premium Deluxe package includes 95 aircraft (45 new MSFS2024 aircraft and 50 upgraded MSFS2020 aircraft) and 160 upgraded airports. 

• New for MSFS2024, the Aviator package includes 125 aircraft (45 new MSFS2024 aircraft, 50 upgraded MSFS2020 aircraft, and 30 payware aircraft that were available for MSFS2020) and 160 upgraded airports. 

Interestingly, Microsoft Flight Simulator has always had an accompanying physical product release, and MSFS2024 will follow in that tradition.

Even in today’s digital world, sim pilots can still purchase an actual physical game box. Doubling down for launch, there will even be limited edition boxes and very limited edition boxes. Pricing for the physical game and box and all of the digital packages above was not available at the time of this writing.

To make MSFS2024 work for everyone is a tall order.

It was clear that the development team built features for all flight sim pilots, allowing the experienced users to go deep into the virtual world using the simulator for Point-A-to-B flying. Also, it focused on providing engaging flight sim experiences for the pilot who wants the structure and excitement of career mode, letting them “choose their own adventure,” to see how their career grows. And casual users can enjoy the simulator doing short sightseeing flights and using the new photography mode.

MSFS2024 seems to have effectively lowered the barrier to entry as well, funneling new users into the career mode to help educate them about the real-world parts of flying. “They will learn more than they expected to,” said Asobo Studios director David Dedeine. 

With the weight of Microsoft’s tech stack behind it, plus the sheer number of new features, improvements, and new aircraft, I took Neumann at his word when he closed the MSFS2024 premier by remarking, “This is just the beginning of what we are going to do.”

And with his team of 800 developers behind him and millions of sim pilots and enthusiasts excitedly awaiting the launch in November, MSFS2024 represents the foundation for growing the experiences that pilots will be able to enjoy. Pilots will have interactions in the air and on the ground that should feel more real. 

It is easy to forget how far and how fast technology has progressed in the years since Microsoft Flight Simulator’s launch in 1982. But based on the leap forward that is MSFS2024—even compared to MSFS2020—the MSFS leadership team has shown that it is prepared to do even more, bringing the digital world of flight even closer to the real world.

This feature first appeared in the November Issue 952 of the FLYING print edition.