Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 was introduced to the world last year as not just the next generation in Microsoft’s longest-running franchise, but also the next stepping stone for the flight sim genre as a whole. As the months passed and more previews were shown, Asobo exuded passion and pride over the immense work it and its partners had been doing behind the scenes.
Now, here we are—aweek after the official launch. I came in very excited to experience the so-called “most advanced flight sim ever.” Unfortunately, it is not yet living up to that moniker.
A launch to remember
I’ve already recounted the disastrous launch of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 in a previous article. But, as a quick recap, the Microsoft Azure servers powering the sim failed to meet the “unprecedented demand” that was experienced on release day. This resulted in most launch-day customers not being able to play until the second or third day after.
Personally, I didn’t get an opportunity to try my first real flight until the 23rd (due to typical life responsibilities, not because of difficulty accessing the sim.) By that time, the most egregious of the server issues had been rectified. Nevertheless, things still weren’t perfect—and that continues to be the case as of the time of writing.
Of course, chasing perfection is a fruitless venture. Reasonable competence is a far more realistic endeavor. Anything beyond that—a spectacular performance, for instance, is a cherry on top.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 never promised to be perfect, but it has promised to usher in a new level of depth and complexity that has “never been seen before” within this genre. That’s the standard that Asobo itself set out to hit. Thus, I wholeheartedly believe that feeling underwhelmed by the sim’s current state is entirely justified.
Where it rises
To not be a complete Debbie Downer throughout this piece, I do want to highlight the areas that have pleased me so far.
While this might be Microsoft Flight Simulator, Asobo and its partners have done an extensive job of enhancing the ground and scenery detail. This has resulted in a virtual rendition of Earth that looks even closer to the real deal. One particular improvement is dramatically boosted variety of foliage, combined with seasonal changes, making quite the visual shift.
For instance, I’ve been flying around my home region of New England and took note of how brown everything looks. At first, I thought that the new Seasons mechanic was perhaps broken, but then it dawned on me that it really does look like that right now outside. Using the powerful Time and Date system, I shifted the virtual clock back a few weeks and noticed the reverse shift from fall colors back to summer greenery.
I didn’t notice how basic MSFS 2020’s implementation of environmental detail was until seeing first-hand the dramatic improvement here in MSFS 2024. Even the inclusion of bare trees mixed in with evergreens makes a big difference, as that’s exactly the live conditions in real life where I am.
Topographical detail has also been given a significant enhancement, resulting in a fully 3D ground environment. Different surfaces truly feel different and your aircraft will react far more dramatically. For instance, gravel and dirt strips are far less forgiving unless you have an aircraft that’s properly equipped for it. Runway excursions are more dramatic for this reason, too.
Even when taxiing along the paved taxiways, cracks, and crevices are properly represented, along with other typical signs of wear like faded tire marks. Each airport looks and feels more ‘lived in.’ Ground handling is also improved, as aircraft now feel more reactive to the little imperfections along the surface.
Of course, there’s no overlooking the improvement of the visuals. Lighting and particle effects have all been given a notable facelift. Texture and model work is also better, as aircraft have more detailed exteriors.
The new walkaround feature is enabled by default, allowing you to set up and visually inspect an aircraft before a flight; just like in real life. Naturally, this leads to admiration for the inclusion of more subtle details such as “remove before flight” tags fluttering in the wind.
Raytracing is now a feature in MSFS 2024, bringing notable improvements to the shading of a scene. Shadows are punchier and reflections are more pronounced. Water elements are also better with more lively-looking waves. The overall color palette seems a tad more washed out than MSFS 2020, but this seems to have more to do with the lighting and shading taking on a more realistic tone.
MSFS 2020 has been wowing the gaming world for over four years now, so the fact that Asobo has been able to increase the visual fidelity of the successor is impressive, to say the least.
The flight dynamics and avionics have been worked on extensively in MSFS 2024 as well. I’ve flown a handful of general aviation aircraft so far, and to be honest, I’m not detecting a dramatic improvement.
That said, my landings do seem to be a little smoother as it does feel like I have a tinge more control over the aircraft. I’ll probably need to do a more direct comparison with the same planes in the older sim for it to be more noticeable. Nevertheless, this is not a knock against MSFS 2024. Its aircraft list is extensive and weather plays a big factor in how an aircraft handles. As time goes on, I’m sure I’ll notice more subtle differences.
Where it falls
As you can see, I’ve found quite a bit of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 to be rather great. I certainly don’t hate the sim by any means, nor will I take the extreme stance that some have of outright refunding it at this time.
Even so, its current highlights unfortunately can’t outweigh its faults.
Perhaps the biggest drawback of this sim is the aforementioned necessity of its cloud-based infrastructure. MSFS 2020 also makes extensive use of cloud streaming, but a lot of core data can be stored locally to reduce the need for streaming in assets. MSFS 2024 will eventually have such functionality, but its Marketplace continues to be closed as Asobo finishes setting it up, which is yet an other drawback.
The current reliance on data streaming goes beyond just terrain and weather data, even aircraft and all their avionics and sounds are being streamed in. On one hand, it’s amazing that such tech is available to consumers today. But, it comes with its own unique complications.
Most of the aircraft I’ve flown have loaded in okay, but there have been issues.
For instance, when trying to remove the chocks from the King Air C90, they kept clipping in and out of existence, making it hard to click on them.
Speaking of the C90, this aircraft and the Pilatus PC-12 are turboprops, and thus, should be pretty loud. Yet, I had to really crank up my volume to hear them, especially during start-up. The Cirrus Vision Jet thankfully had a much punchier sound profile. The Saab 340B, an aircraft I was very excited to try, wouldn’t even generate any external sounds the one time I tested it.
Scenery elements looking a bit wonky continue to be a thing to this day in MSFS 2020, but so too is the case here in MSFS 2024. While I haven’t seen the Minecraft-like messes that others have reported, I have spotted a few blocky-looking areas (take note of the bottom left corner of the image below.)
What is more annoying to me is the popping in of elements like static aircraft that are a mere few feet away. Sometimes only most parts of the aircraft are visible, such as everything but the wheels being there. I’ve also witnessed aircraft taxiing around in circles, sometimes with their engines and wheels not even moving.
While Asobo has worked to improve the variety of ground traffic, including the addition of real-world liveries, the live traffic-matching still needs a lot of work.
I’ve seen airliners being represented by business jets and other small aircraft, as well as models for airliners that have never visited a certain airport.
During one session where I was preparing to take off from KPVD, my home airport, I noticed a few Air New Zealand Dash 8s parked up on the apron. I love the aircraft itself, but it was jarring to see these models in Rhode Island; a place they’ve never been at any point in history.
This tells me that the traffic system is, to an extent, generating aircraft for the sake of doing so.
There doesn’t seem to be any parameters in place for total accuracy or adherence to historical data. Another example is seeing business jets and other general aviation models sitting at jetways over at Burlington International (KBTV) in Vermont.
In the trailers for MSFS 2024, Asobo showed off scenes of very active airports with a lot of traffic and work vehicles moving around, in addition to passenger models boarding an airliner. I’ve yet to try out an airliner in the new sim, but the ‘airport life’ aspect still doesn’t seem as congested and lively as what was shown.
More planes are moving about, but as I just mentioned, some of them aren’t even doing so correctly. I’ll need to conduct more tests across even larger airports, but so far, I’m simply not impressed.
The Career Mode is one of the sim’s new tentpole features, though, admittedly, I haven’t yet tried it nor any of the other modes aside from Free Flight.
That said, there have been numerous reports from other players of how broken it currently is. From mission criteria being passed and failed haphazardly, to required parking locations being obstructed by scenery objects, overall it seems to be a mess. Again, this is yet another feature that’s heavily reliant on server functionality, so results have been varying.
That sentiment right there, “results have been varying,” seems to be the general consensus surrounding Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 at this time.
“When it works…”
That’s the way I’ve been seeing some players describe their time with the sim so far. That descriptor has typically been followed by reactions like: “It’s beautiful” or “It’s actually a lot of fun.”
Being able to properly log on and get a few flight hours in has certainly yielded a degree of enjoyment from me. Even so, there are still so many areas that need improvement.
To put it succinctly, at least from what’s been experienced so far, it doesn’t seem like Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is ready for primetime just yet. Rather bluntly, it would appear that the developers were given a deadline of making sure to deliver the sim in 2024, perhaps no matter the cost, hence its name.
The fact that the Marketplace isn’t even ready yet, but cross-generation add-ons are being haphazardly enabled without proper authorization from their devs seems to be even more definitive evidence of this.
And, really, what was the rush? The flight sim community seemed more-or-less content with the state of things until last summer when this new sim was first revealed.
Asobo showed the world what would be coming next and only then did the shortcomings of MSFS 2020 become more obvious to point out. Yet, particularly thanks to the consistent release of complex add-ons and free updates that were helping to make serious progress with enhancing the sim, it was certainly performing quite competently.
Still, the excitement of something new that promises to be even more amazing is easy to get wrapped in. And thus, over time, I, and thousands of others, gradually gave in to the technical breakdowns (mixed in with smooth talking) of MSFS 2024 and how it would achieve groundbreaking results.
So far, I don’t have that promised product in my possession.
No customer should be expecting their purchase to get better as time goes on in order to fully enjoy it. Rather, it should be impactful from the very beginning.
The fact that certain products, like digital applications, can be enhanced over time in this modern era is an amazing benefit. Yet, so often it’s being used as a crutch by companies to capitalize on hype. Then, the hope is that a problematic release can sustain the initial fallout and future improvements will make up for it.
Asobo has built up a lot of goodwill with how hard it worked on MSFS 2020. While it would be hyperbolic of me to say all of that confidence has been eroded away, a sizeable chunk has certainly been diminished. Stuff does happen and shortcomings are a fact of life. However, this launch has been more than just a simple series of server complications.
The core product is underdeveloped—it needs more work. The big, impactful features, outside of the visual enhancements, are either not working as intended or are flat-out not yet ready. Again, I just don’t understand why it needed to be this way right now.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 in its current form represents four years of post-launch progress. Therefore, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 already had a solid foundation to simply build itself up from. The expectation was that all the progress made in the previous sim would simply be the jumping-off point for the new one. Instead, it feels like it’s a swinging pendulum; depending on the scenario it can be pretty good, and yet at other times, it’s a mess.
Even the UI, a seemingly simple element in comparison to the many complexities of such a title like this, isn’t that great. Comically, it stands as an example of what the entire package currently represents: a hodgepodge of an experience.
Where to from here?
As someone who’s put 2,530 hours into Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, I am very much looking forward to enjoying its successor—at some point.
While I haven’t jumped back into the old sim since, I have yet to be fully convinced why I shouldn’t soon put MSFS 2024 in the hangar and go back to where the skies are currently a bit smoother.
This is very conflicting considering a new product is expected to run circles around the old. Otherwise, what’s the purpose of introducing a new one? Well, that’s the question I’ve been asking. The issues aren’t tiny enough to simply ignore; I’m genuinely not loving my time with the new sim, and that’s disheartening to say.
If the last four years are anything to go by, I know Asobo will eventually come through. A big new update here, a patch there; the product will be polished. But, this is exactly what shouldn’t be happening: more waiting for more polish.
The expectation should not be that any time we get a big new sim, a mess will ensue that needs to be gradually cleaned up and only then, after much trial and error, is it worth jumping into.
I try not to let the more radical reactions of some fellow gamers influence my judgment of a product, but for once, I really do feel like I’ve paid $120 to be a beta tester.
