As a long-time flight simulator enthusiast who has weathered numerous launches of these games over the years, I have to say that Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is, unfortunately, a step back from its predecessor. Having eagerly awaited this new installment, I must confess I feel like a weary pilot who’s just flown into a storm after taking off with high hopes.
The unexpected unveiling of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (MSFS 2024) sparked a buzz among flight simulation enthusiasts, who had anticipated that the 2020 version would maintain its position for about a decade like previous Microsoft releases. However, the announcement of a successor just four years after 2020, when MSFS 2020 was at its peak in terms of stability, support, and overall quality, raised some questions. It appears that these concerns might indeed be justified.
2024 version of Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) debuted on a Tuesday, but technical issues hindered many users from fully utilizing it for several days following the launch. These problems affected all users regardless of their internet speed or hardware configuration. After nearly a month, MSFS 2024 has become stable enough to run, allowing players to explore the skies once more and discover what 2024 has in store compared to its 2020 predecessor. However, it seems that the new version has brought back some of the challenges experienced during the early stages of MSFS 2020, such as bugs, design flaws, and a myriad of other issues. In essence, this simulator might have benefited from an additional 6 to 12 months in development before being released to the public.
A promising career mode with a grind
As a devoted enthusiast, I’m thrilled about the forthcoming MSFS 2024, which promises a host of fresh, enticing elements. For instance, it introduces a captivating new career mode that promises immersive gaming experiences. Moreover, the default aircraft selection has been broadened, offering a wider variety to choose from. The cherry on top is the enhanced environmental effects, such as more realistic scenery and weather conditions, all while maintaining optimal performance thanks to cloud-based streaming.
The revamped career option is designed to infuse a sense of purpose into your flight simulations, enabling pilots to establish their own airline businesses that progress from short tours to lucrative cargo flights. This mode emulates advancement systems found in other simulation and sports games. Initially, you’ll start with a modest aircraft and meager funds, taking on diverse tasks to accumulate experience and money. These earnings can be used to acquire licenses, opening up new, more profitable job opportunities. Regardless of your preferred flying destination, missions are dynamically generated by the simulator to ensure a global experience.
The career mode can serve as an excellent starting point for new pilots to learn different aircraft and flying techniques, setting them on a path to become more comfortable with how to operate the aircraft and eventually fly even the most complex airliners on offer. This mode also scratches that itch of progression and working towards a goal. Unfortunately, the progression can be quite grindy as some of the most interesting types of jobs, such as fire-fighting and search and rescue missions, require many hours of flying to unlock. These missions are only available to fly in career mode, meaning there is no way for a seasoned pilot to jump into arguably the biggest selling point of MSFS 2024 without slowly progressing through much more boring jobs.
A notable aspect of MSFS 2024 is the upgraded graphics, encompassing everything from ground details to weather, clouds, and seasonal variations. The developers assured players that this simulation would boast a more stunning appearance than its predecessor, MSFS 2020, while maintaining superior performance. This aspect was what I found most doubtful when MSFS 2024 was unveiled, and it seems Asobo may need to put in additional effort to fulfill this pledge. The objective is to enhance the visuals without compromising speed, achieved by relying heavily on streaming scenery and content data from the cloud. This indeed leads to a reduced application size on your PC or Xbox, a feature console users are likely to appreciate. However, it also implies that any issues with the streaming services could significantly diminish the visual quality.
On my system, MSFS 2024 noticeably surpasses MSFS 2020 when everything runs efficiently. The visual quality can be exceptionally sharp, and it’s a treat to witness AI-controlled traffic maneuvering at crowded airports without causing my frame rate to slow significantly – provided I install a third-party add-on for the AI traffic, as the built-in version, although improved over 2020, remains somewhat subpar.
In simpler terms, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 offers more aircraft options within the simulator, which is beneficial for users who don’t buy additional add-ons. However, this expansion may slightly reduce the overall quality of the built-in aircraft. Some returning planes, like the Cessna Longitude and CJ4, are just as good or even better than their 2020 counterparts. For instance, the Longitude now has a cabin. The work on the avionics in some aircraft by Asobo and Working Title remains impressive. Unfortunately, some of the new planes still experience common issues such as incomplete systems, non-functional controls, and unexpected behavior that were present in the stock planes of 2020.
Streaming woes: An online-only frustration
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: streaming. For years, flight simmers have resisted the idea of requiring an online connection to fly in a simulator. If you don’t want multiplayer, surely you don’t need to be online for a flight simulator. MSFS 2020 slowly got players used to requiring online services, but even there, connection problems would frequently occur and result in minor annoyances. Getting friends into a multiplayer session was like a game of chance, with no real reason why you could see some of your friends but not others. So when MSFS 2024 announced that it would stream all of its scenery from the cloud, people were reasonably not very excited about the prospect. So when it turned out that not only scenery, but in fact the entire hangar of airplanes would be streamed, on-demand, problems were bound to happen. And happen they did. At launch, MSFS 2024 was entirely unavailable for a majority of users due to lack of capacity and bugs with the cloud services, sometimes for several days.
Despite the fact that the rocky start during the initial launch has been left behind, ongoing issues with streaming continue to plague the service. Users regularly encounter poor visual quality, sometimes even no detail at all. Surprisingly, gamers who subscribe to high-speed internet services still often encounter unfinished cockpits in aircraft, and those who pause the game during flight may find their plane vanishing while it saves data, which is quite absurd. In essence, these problems are indeed preposterous.
Currently, Asobo Studio has suggested the possibility of allowing players to download specific landscapes and aircraft directly onto their devices instead of streaming them, but this feature hasn’t been implemented yet, and no definite release date has been set. The same goes for the in-game marketplace, which is currently unavailable, meaning there’s nowhere for console users to purchase add-ons at the moment. To clarify, while there are many add-ons designed for MSFS 2020, especially sceneries, using them with MSFS 2024 is an adventure for the bold.
Over the past four years of MSFS 2020, there has been a plethora of excellent add-on aircraft developed by companies such as PMDG, Fenix Sim, and many others. When MSFS 2024 was announced, these developers and their customers were repeatedly assured that add-ons will be largely compatible with MSFS 2024 in some sort of compatibility mode. Reality paints a much different picture, however. One month in, and I can count the number of working third-party airplanes on one hand. Those who were able to make their products work either rely on external applications which make them less reliable on core Asobo code, or have been fortunate enough to build their add-ons within a limited framework that still works. However, many high-fidelity add-ons are nowhere near close to being compatible with MSFS 2024, with developers complaining about outright lack of support for features from 2020, as well as the reintroduction of bugs that took many months to get fixed in MSFS 2020.
It’s no exaggeration to state that the dedicated enthusiasts deeply immersed in the Microsoft Flight Simulator environment are beyond frustrated. However, let’s put that aside temporarily and focus on the fundamental features that come with the software itself.
A step back for controls
In simpler terms, the career mode in MSFS 2024 is quite demanding, time-consuming, and prone to bugs, much like other sim games. However, it’s impressive that you can establish your company anywhere globally and receive missions tailored to your location. The issue lies in the unusual job assignments, such as long-distance scenic tours for tourists, which are often given to Cessna 172 pilots despite their limited range. This is frustrating because these flights can last several hours, which is impractical and not enjoyable, especially when the AI conversations among passengers are repetitive and annoying. Moreover, reducing the volume of the passenger chatter also means missing important ATC communications, which remain problematic, just as they were in MSFS 2020. To add to the frustration, there are occasional bugs where the game may incorrectly label a successful landing as a crash, costing you a substantial amount of virtual money, or hours of progress.
The configuration of controls in MSFS 2020 was poor, to say the least. The control management in MSFS 2024 is somehow worse. What players wanted was a way to easily have different control schemes assigned to different aircraft. What players got was a convoluted system whereby there are different categories of controls, some which seemingly are tied to an aircraft, some which are generic, and then some others. There’s no way to identify what controls belong to what category, and while the sim usually doesn’t remember what aircraft-specific controls belong to what aircraft, it also frequently just deletes them all, just so you can experience the joy of setting them up again. I can’t even blame this control management scheme on the Xbox console limitations, because it seems just as terrible for controller users as for anyone with a more advanced setup. Oh, and some controls are just plain missing, even though they’re advertised in the pre-flight screen itself, and others either don’t function at all, or function poorly. I’d like to insert a table flip gif here with “MSFS 2024 controls” written on it, but I’m not that artistic.
Besides the persistent problems from MSFS 2020, such as unrefined air traffic control, erratic movement of ground vehicles on runways, large speed bumps, canyon-like gaps, solitary trees near runway thresholds, and oddly placed, massive scenic columns seemingly emerging from the earth without purpose, it’s clear that there are numerous challenges to address.
2024? More like 2025
For those accustomed to flight simulator launches, it’s no secret that issues like these aren’t unusual. In truth, the initial phases of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 were rocky at best. Given the remarkable progress Microsoft and Asobo made in improving MSFS 2020, making it stable and prosperous, the current state of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is particularly disheartening. Those who bought MSFS 2024, anticipating a continuation of that improved state, have been left feeling severely let down and are likely to remain so for quite a while.
If there seems to be some positive developments ahead, I am optimistic that Asobo will address these issues, eventually resulting in a Microsoft Flight Simulator as stable as its 2020 version, with all the extra technical enhancements. However, we’re not at that stage yet, and it’s during this period that players have invested in this product. The ‘2024’ label feels premature; this game could have benefited from an additional 6-12 months of development and refinement. It’s clear that the game is not fully prepared, and more work needs to be done before it’s ready. For flight simulator enthusiasts, the choice lies between returning to the 2020 version, as many have already done, or becoming beta testers for the 2024 version, understanding that improvements will take time to materialize.
This critique is written following the Microsoft Store’s PC version launch. I received the game code from the publisher for review purposes. The upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will be compatible with Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, and can be purchased from the Microsoft Store or Steam on personal computers.
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2024-12-18 19:28