The Prepar3D presentation at the Flight Sim Expo revealed that Prepar3D V6 will release this July!
The wait for Prepar3D V6 is almost over. What was intended to be a Q&A session became an announcement presentation for Lockheed Martin’s newest flight simulation product. Many new features and quality-of-life changes are coming with this new release. Let’s go through some of the highlights here!
Prepar3D V6 primarily focuses on visual improvements, bringing new lighting and reflections to make the whole game feel fresh. The developers at Lockheed Martin have also brought a whole new atmosphere generation engine (based on Unreal), replacing the dating TrueSky engine. This, alongside the lighting enhancements, brings a fresh coat of paint to an aging product in an environment almost entirely monopolized by MSFS.
The new release will also come with a total airport generation revamp. The default generation of global airports has been drastically improved to make your ground stays far more pleasant to the eye. Additionally, these changes will not conflict with your custom scenery! This has been a focus with all the changes in Prepar3D V6, the developers have worked with the community to ensure that everything is backward compatible and no product should become deprecated with the update.
Technical changes were made to the wording of the EULA and user agreements, including a change to the Academic license, which has been replaced with a Personal license such that users are no longer constantly breaking the EULA. Additionally, the Professional and Professional Plus licenses have seen a significant price hike to reflect their commercial use cases.
One of the quality-of-life features coming with Prepar3D V6 is a revamped update procedure. Instead of re-downloading the entire game with each update, a new built-in updater will update files as needed. This allows for a faster release schedule and the ability to release small patches and bug fixes.
While all of these features might seem like small changes, especially when compared to the changes coming with competition like MSFS2024, it’s indicative of a clear shift for the Prepar3D brand. The flight simulation tool cannot target the same audience as MSFS; it doesn’t compete on the same playing field anymore. The changes will certainly be welcome for its loyal user base, but P3D add-on developers are dropping like flies. Understandably fans of the series are concerned.
However, there is hope. Lockheed Martin has partnered with Unreal for all of its simulation tools. This partnership has not played any part in the development of Prepar3D V6. However, there is the possibility of a whole new P3Dv7 running on Unreal Engine. This could rocket the Prepar3D product back into the limelight. Time will tell.
Make sure to stay tuned for the final day of the Flight Sim Expo and catch up on any news you may have missed on our dedicated FSExpo23 page! Check back for more Prepar3D V6 news as it becomes available.
