A stunning technical achievement and a hardcore simulator that is both approachable and transcendent. We took to the skies over the course of dozens of hours with Microsoft Flight Simulator and marveled at the miracle of flight, our planet, and how developer Asobo and the Xbox team delivered one of the year's defining experiences.

The latest instalment in the long running Flight Simulator series from Microsoft continues the trend of being as focused on ensuring the propeller on a Cessna 152 is the same dimension, size, and weight of its real-world counterpart as it is presenting the sort of distance and scale we rarely see in digital form. In 2020, Microsoft Flight Simulator leverages technology that feels as much of our current place and time as it does the immediate and distant future.

From small towns to large cities, high-resolution satellite imagery is then processed by sophisticated AI to let Skynet-by-the-way-of-Azure cloud computing recreate structural and environmental shapes, heights, and detail without the need for an individual to go in and spend months modelling Sunshine West in Melbourne. It’s impressive to say the least. But again, throw in scale – as in the entire planet Earth – and the mind boggles. Especially when real-world weather tracking and entire systems that ensure clouds look and behave realistically, in addition to how wind affects your craft depending on which side of the mountain you’re flying, are also in place.

Our Full Microsoft Flight Simulator Review

A note on the 'ol score... 10 doesn't mean perfect and that a game is without faults. It's simply the highest score we assign. Microsoft Flight Simulator more than earns this, and if you have any specific questions relating to elements -- let us know.

Can I fly in this world as Iron Man?

Definiton of Miracle:
An extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency.
Human flight is a combination of science/technology/mechanics, not the divine.

Indeed!

Didn't use 'Miracle' in the strictest sense of the term. More humility than the divine, more my understanding of flight versus ol' Xenu done did it.

The question is, is Iron Man "a combination of science/technology/mechanics"?

Definiton of Miracle: An extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency. Human flight is a combination of science/technology/mechanics, not the divine.

What an odd thing to say.

What sort of bandwidth was being used? Are you able to set a max limit?

Basically ~1GB per hour on average, though location hopping I was using more than that. Might be wrong but I reckon 4GB easy an hour for intensive looking at different spots to find a scenic locale (check my vid). There is an offline mode and you can set data limits, how much to stream, track total data usage and so forth. The tools are there to help manage and you can turn the streaming off completely for an "offline" experience.

Basically ~1GB per hour on average, though location hopping I was using more than that. Might be wrong but I reckon 4GB easy an hour for intensive looking at different spots to find a scenic locale (check my vid). There is an offline mode and you can set data limits, how much to stream, track total data usage and so forth. The tools are there to help manage and you can turn the streaming off completely for an "offline" experience.

Is it possible to offline cache the entire world?!

You can set your maximum cache size, so your SSD space is the limit.

edit: just had my first quick little run around. Manhattan ran well on high settings some things turned up to ultra. Can't wait to get all my s*** done today and then really get stuck into it.

Is it possible to offline cache the entire world?!

you got 2 petabytes laying around?

There's the answer... the world is big... petabytely

Can't wait to visit the Great Australian Petabyte.

Dumb lazy question but how does one buy this; it's not on Steam that I can see - is the only digital option the MS store?

It's on Steam - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1250410/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator/

It will download a client that you open and then downloads the game. This is incredibly annoying because it's a big enough resource hog to stop me playing HZD while I wait and will also void your refund because the game will be open longer than two hours.

Grab a Gamepass subscription if you haven't already. $5 a month and Flight Sim is included. You'll need to download off the Microsoft store but due to the annoying download client there isn't much difference anyway.

wtf, so weird - I went through Steam yesterday and couldn't find it anywhere.

Thanks for the tip, I'll check out Gamepass. I think I'm gonna wait a bit as I think I might need to upgrade to get the most out of it.

Looks so awesome though.

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is this thing still there!?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8652751/Melbourne-monolith-Microsoft-Flight-Simulator-created-mistake.html

Yep it's still there. Hasn't been an update yet so I'll check again later.

Handy graphic setting tweak guide

Handy keyboard shortcut overview

A patch which has improved performance greatly has just dropped. I haven't tested it out yet but apparently the difference is very noticeable.

details

The last patch was quite good for sure in game performance. I would really like the Garmin G1000 brought more up to speed, its pretty good, but needs quite a bit more done. More weather improvements would be good too, e.g. more impact from wind conditions, etc.

What kit is everybody rocking these days? My currently setup is:

Honeycomb Alpha Flight Yolk (yoke flying -- using Logitech Extreme 3D Pro for throttle)
Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick (stick flying -- still going strong after 15+ years!)
Thrustmaster TMX Pro (via UCR) for rudder pedals/foot break.

My wife doesn't realise that the Honeycomb Bravo Quadrant and Honeycomb Charlie pedals are on the horizon just yet. But I've just bought her some new camera lenses to distract her :P