Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (2024)

Had a little play with this at a friend's yesterday and I love seeing how far the game will let you go before it breaks.

The fact I could land in my families garden, get out, walk down the drive and up to the house, and then walk back and open all the panels on the plane and try to take off only to crash and get out again to ditch the plane lmao.

Was looking forward to this one but this is a rough start to the experience. I stayed away from launch day as I heard about all the server issues. When I finally jumped in it seemed to launch and run okay though it was a bit sluggish to load everything.

My big issue was that my joystick (Thrustmaster) was recognized but had the most bizarre settings provided by Microsoft. The throttle is tied to the rudder so that when I throttle up the rudder moves to the left, and when I throttle down the rudder moves to the right. WTF? I opened up the settings and there are input conflicts all over the place with Microsoft's defaults.

It took me a while to diagnose the issue since I was using the in-cockpit view. I kept getting weird jarring plane movements I couldn't explain. Once I finally changed to the external view I could see that various control surfaces were changing when I didn't expect them to and were causing the plane to twist and nearly nose dive while still on the runway.

I am going to keep trying the game out because when it runs smooth it is fun, but please beware.

MSFS 2024 launched a few days ago and it's a shit show. People can't log in or even install the game proper (the steam install is basically just a launcher that then downloads the game assets). Those who can get in ar met with a whole slew of errors and loading issues. As expected, the game is getting pummeled by reviewers.

My simulation game senses are tingling and Microsoft have a new Flight Simulator coming out next month. Looks like people are conflicted with this one, it boasts more airports and more planes, but much of the content is "updated" flight simulator content from the last game in 2020. Personally it feels like only yesterday I bought the 2020 edition and I feel like I've barely touched it.

I like the direction they're taking the game in with a campaign of sorts that focuses on real life careers in the aviation industry. It feels like a natural progression from the modes that are already in the 2020 version like challenges and the scenic flights which act as a sort of tourist simulator. The 2024 version adds career paths such as; search and rescue, air ambulance, agriculture spraying, air advertisement, red bull racing etc. etc. It reminds me a lot of the direction that other simulators have already gone in such as Storm Works and the Mud Runner series with their expeditions game which focused on research and recon, and their upcoming game which focuses on road construction, infrastructure, and hauling.

I personally don't think four years is outrageously short in terms of moving on to a new game, although the nature of Flight simulator 2020 did give the impression that this was something which would be supported and updated for a long time, especially with the utilisation of satellite technology and other systems to constantly improve the world and data that could be streamed to your PC or console. Like others have already said, I would have preferred a $20 upgrade fee, but I guess they need to push out new games too. I need to look into what Microsoft themselves have said about Flight Simulator 2020 and what kind of support they're going to maintain (if any) as their new venture rolls out.