Throughout August this year, three months before Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024’s scheduled release, Jorg Neumann, head of the project, was interviewed twice about the upcoming simulator and brought light on some of the features and improvements MSFS 2024 will bring.
Andy Edser from PC Gamer conducted the first interview, and Benny Central conducted the second at Gamescon 2024.
Vegetation & animals
Vegetation is crucial for immersion in lower altitudes. Whilst you won’t appreciate it from cruise altitude at FL360 (36,000ft on standard pressure), it should help improve the realism of operations near the ground.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will use two data sources for map generation. Both are also currently used in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. They are satellite imagery from Bing and LIDAR scans from aeroplanes flying above the ground and scanning elevation every 50cm or 1m. What will change in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 over its predecessor is the way vegetation is generated. The developers have for MSFS 2024 developed an improved machine learning process that has been done to the extent that it can look at the data and figure out what species of tree there should be.
This feature will come in handy in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024’s missions, like aerial construction, search and rescue missions, or aerial firefighting. These are all done in low altitudes and benefit from the detailed vegetation when it comes to immersion.
Jorg Neumann from MSFS also detailed the situation around animals. Given his previous experience working on Zoo Tycoon, a zoo-building simulation game, he commented that Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will have a bigger variety of animals running around the world than Zoo Tycoon.
Install size
One of the downsides of MSFS 2020 is the download size, with just the default game being around 130GB. This is without taking into account various World Updates and third-party add-ons. This is why the developers aim to make the whole installation, likely without third-party add-ons (author note: peculation), under 50GB. This should help people save space on their drives and make the simulator more accessible to areas without high-speed connections.
One way the developers are trying to achieve this is by offloading more data to the cloud. Jorg of MSFS did not detail whether internet connection requirements will change from MSFS 2020 or remain the same.
Ships
Whilst not as popular as aeroplanes, at least within flight simmers, ships are still part of our hobby to some extent, and they should not be overlooked. This is also why Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will accurately depict real-time ship traffic. Jorg confirmed that all ships will be landable, which might not be a feature aimed at airline pilots, but helicopter pilots will surely appreciate it. The feature will bring an extra challenge in the form of landing helicopters on moving ships. This will also be a great combination with oil rigs spread across the bodies of water present in the simulator.
Jorg did not detail how the ship traffic will be handled when time is changed in-game, how it will be modelled, or based on what will be modelled.
Free-walk mode
Walking around the world freely is probably the biggest and most surprising feature Jorg mentioned so far. This feature supports the team’s confidence in their product by allowing everyone to see the generated world from close-up.
As Jorg explains, you will be able to walk your favourite path up to a mountain hut. By Jorg’s description, it almost seems like the developers are making a virtual world of the earth. This feature was not further described.
Airports
As discussed in both interviews, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 promises to include every glider airport and helipad. Further, Jorg Neumann mentioned that all airports have been improved and look “much better” in MSFS 2024. It wasn’t mentioned to what extent and, thus, if third-party scenery will be necessary, but we’ll keep track of the information as it appears.
Career system
A career system will be present in MSFS 2024, joining the existing landing challenges and exploration activities. With this, players will have the option to choose their careers and become cropduster pilots, aerial firefighter pilots, air cargo pilots, or passenger pilots.
This should add reason for people to stick with the platform, and perhaps also give a way to interact with the simulator itself.
Release date
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will be released on November 19th, 2024. On day one, it will also be available through the Xbox Game Pass. The price has not been revealed yet; however, it was confirmed previously that people will not have to purchase their addons from MSFS 2020 again for MSFS 2024.
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