Microsoft just hosted a livestream dedicated to Microsoft Flight Simulator, with plenty of information about upcoming features and improvements and a few new details about Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
As is the tradition with this kind of developer livestream on the game's official Twitch channel, we get the news head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann, Asobo chief executive officer Sebastian Wlock, and executive producer Martial Bossard.
We start by hearing that the simulator has reached record user engagement in December, January, and February. The Dune expansion achieved 2.6 million sessions and it was the 3rd most downloaded package ever after the Top Gun: Maverick expansion and Halo's Pelican.
Neumann shared that the water masks that were missing in the Caribbean have just been implemented in the simulator, as you can see in the screenshots below.
They are still not perfect, but the development team is working on an experimental solution to eliminate the seams between aerial pictures. News about this could be coming soon during the next livestream.
We then hear that the live weather currently doesn't generate the thickest clouds, so turbulence isn't as strong as some may expect. This will be fixed as soon as the developers can.
We hear that Sim Update 15 is now planned for March 26 (a bit later than the previously announced date, March 12) and might move a few days further since it's a big update with a lot of content and features.
It'll improve stability considerably and fix a lot of crashes. A partial rewrite of the WASM module will optimize memory management for many aircraft, which should result in performance and stability improvements.
We're also getting optimization on Xbox that will make the simulator more stable on the consoles. The system will reduce material map resolution when the system is close to running out of memory. This should prevent or at least greatly mitigate the infamous "black screen" issue.
That being said, this should not significantly impact the visuals of the simulator when it happens.
We hear more about the advanced Airbus A320neo by iniBuilds that will be added for free to the simulator. Below you can check out a presentation by iniBuilds' own Cameron MacMillan.
The aircraft is coming in Sim Update 15. It will not replace the existing A320neo (which is much less detailed) but will exist side-by-side with it.
Next, we hear about City Update 6, which will be Southwest Germany. It'll include Mannheim, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Esslingen, Kehl, and Strasbourg. It'll also come with an airport, Friedrichshafen Airport (EDNY) developed by iniBuilds.
Below you can enjoy a few screenshots.
The Local Legends 15 has also been announced and it's the unique Dornier Do 31 VTOL cargo aircraft. It's developed by iniBuilds and you can see a video with developer Michael Standen showing it off.
Incidentally, the video also shows Friedrichshafen Airport.
Below you can check out the updated roadmap for this year.
Next, we finally hear more about Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, which will include the Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet and the Jetson One. Both will be built by FlightFX and will be part of the base simulator.
The Vision Jet will be an upgraded version of the payware aircraft released by FlightFX for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which you can see below. Interestingly the inclusion of the Vision Jet in the base lineup was encouraged by the CEO of Cirrus.
Interestingly, Neumann mentioned that the developer would like to hear feedback on whether the aircraft should be pulled from the marketplace because he's a "little bit worried that people would buy it in September or something, and right after that comes Flight Simulator 2024."
It's unsure whether this was a tease about the sim possibly coming "right after" September or a slip-up. We reached out to Microsoft for clarification and we'll update this article if we hear anything relevant.
We also hear that the developers are working on Ray Tracing, for 2024, but Wlock did not mention whether it'll be available at launch or at a later time.
Neumann mentioned that Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will have the entire world updated from what we have in 2020, including the latest data that Bing can possibly provide. That data will be backported into 2020.
Lastly, we hear that Microsoft will be present at FlightSimExpo 2024 in Las Vegas.
As usual, please keep in mind that we publish daily Microsoft Flight Simulator news here on TechRaptor, so feel free to come back often to find out what's happening in this wonderful hobby.
