Microsoft Flight Simulator is a 2020 flight simulation video game developed by Asobo Studio and published by Xbox Game Studios. It is a sequel to Microsoft Flight Simulator X (2006) and a reboot of the Microsoft Flight Simulator series, which began in 1982. The game's development began six years prior to its release. It was released on August 18, 2020 for Windows, with a virtual reality (VR) version released in December of the same year as part of a free update. Microsoft Flight Simulator is the first installment in the series to see a VR and console release, being released on the Xbox Series X and Series S on July 27, 2021.

Flight Simulator simulates the topography of the Earth using data from Bing Maps. Microsoft Azure's artificial intelligence (AI) generates the three-dimensional representations of Earth's features, using its cloud computing to render and enhance visuals, and real-world data to generate real-time weather and effects. Flight Simulator features a physics engine to provide realistic flight control surfaces, with over 1,000 simulated surfaces, as well as realistic wind modeled over hills and mountains. Some places are handcrafted, introduced in region-specific updates. To augment its realism, Azure incorporates real-time elements like natural weather and real-world air traffic.

Flight Simulator was released to critical acclaim, with universal praise for its visuals and realism, and it was cited by critics as the "safest way to travel" during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several reviewers placed it on their favorites' lists and called it the most aesthetically pleasing game of 2020, though there was some criticism of its slow loading times, inaccuracies in rendering certain buildings, and unrealistic aerodynamics models. It has been considered one of the greatest video games and it received several accolades, most notably winning "Best Sim/Strategy Game" at The Game Awards 2020, and "Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year" at the 24th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. A sequel, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, was released in November 2024.

Gameplay

As a flight simulation video game, Microsoft Flight Simulator has a tutorial segment divided into sequences that allow players who are new either to aviation or flight simulators, to learn the game's basic controls, flight instruments, and other topics deemed essential for them to know before flying; it concludes with a takeoff and landing test. Throughout the tutorial, fictional pilot Captain Jess Molina, voiced by Marie Westbrook, assists players. It offers landing challenges at some of the most famous and dangerous airports and the player is graded based on "how close to the center of the runway you land, how long it takes your plane to come to a full stop, and the touchdown's smoothness." Another gameplay mode features three sight-seeing bush trips set in Nevada, Patagonia and the Balkans.

Flight Simulator has an artificial intelligence (AI) air traffic controller (ATC) and a virtual co-pilot who can assist players when they are unable to perform actions like requesting landing clearance or going through checklists. It has several helper features: "Assistance" enables waypoint arrows at the taxiways, showing players where to go; "Route & Waypoints" enables markers to guide players in the sky; "Landing Path" guides players on landing; "Travel To" allows the pilot to jump to certain points of the flight (climb, cruise, descent, approach, finals – similar to time-lapse), condensing long-haul flights; an "Active Pause" pauses the flight, allowing players to explore the surrounding area or take a break. There are subtitles available for radio transmissions. These features are not available during challenges. The game also features a "legacy" option to enable a flight model from previous iterations of Flight Simulator.

Flight Simulator allows players to search for fauna, either by filtering for it on the world map or selecting "Fauna Markers" when in mid-air. The "Autorudder" feature keeps the plane on the centre line of taxiways and runways when the player cannot control it. Another feature allows the player to enter a geographic coordinate to find a location. The gameplay screen features a toolbar of buttons which allow the player to open the various windows for air traffic control, the camera views, modify checklists, view the navigation log, see objectives, view the visual flight rules (VFR) map, etc. The gaming interface also has the VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) compass, and the altimeter, throttle, engine, fuel, flaps, and trim tabs controls. Additional features like the head-up display (HUD) are accessible from the settings.

Flight Simulator features no animations or depictions of damage or collision when an aircraft crashes. Instead, it cuts to black and provides a one-line message explaining why the plane crashed. Damaging the plane without crashing can degrade the aircraft's flight characteristics and so cause the aircraft structure to fail, which will place a message saying the aircraft exceeded limits but not exactly which limits were exceeded.

Due to its complex amount of topographical, scenery and object data, Flight Simulator requires a certain speed of Internet connection for seamless gameplay. Windows Central states that a minimum of 5 Mbit/s is required, with at least 20 Mbit/s recommended and 50 Mbit/s being ideal. Flight Simulator has an offline mode, which uses the latest pre-cached data saved to the local hard drive. Two caches exist, a rolling cache (controlled automatically by the simulator) and a manual cache (which can be set by the user). The rolling cache is written to when the user goes to flight mode, caching the local objects and scenery, and updates as the pilot flies around the virtual world. The user sets the manual cache locations and amount of detail to be stored, and the user can determine the storage sizes used in both methods - as well as turn them off if required.

Features The Standard edition of Flight Simulator includes over 20 flyable aircraft; the Deluxe has five more, and the Premium Deluxe edition has ten additional airplanes compared to the basic version. Most of the aircraft are of American, French, or German origin, with a few manufactured by Austrian, Czech, and Slovenian companies. Aircraft included in the Deluxe version include those manufactured by Diamond Aircraft, Cirrus Aircraft, and Textron Aviation Inc., while aircraft exclusive to the Premium Deluxe version includes the Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner and the Cessna Citation Longitude, and several general aviation aircraft. Flight Simulator includes around 37,000 manually edited airports from around the world based on real-world satellite images. The Standard, Deluxe, and Premium Deluxe edition include, respectively, 30, 35, or 40 hand-crafted airports that replicate their real-world counterparts. Airports in the Deluxe edition include those in the United States, Europe, and Africa, while those exclusively for the Premium Deluxe version include Heathrow and Dubai Airports, in addition to those from the US and Europe.

The addition of third-party aircraft and airports, including those from Flight Simulator X are supported within the simulator, as are additions of other services. Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network (VATSIM) and the International Virtual Aviation Organisation (IVAO) are examples of online flight-simulation networks supported within Flight Simulator since release that allow pilots to talk to human air traffic controllers (instead of the AI ones) and to each other where there is no ATC coverage. These services add to the realism of flight simulators, and VATSIM was even used in 2008 to test proposed real-world changes to ATC before implementation. Many of the third-party add-ons are repaints or exclusive liveries. In addition, there are other add-ons (mods) for things such as recording flights, and a weather mod designed by Weather Preset Pro. The Microsoft team has said that they "welcome [all third party developers] onboard," and that they are "critically important". To simplify things, an in-game marketplace was created on the game's website featuring a variety of third-party content. This includes the stock world updates, and some third-party mods such as A32NX by FlyByWire Simulations for the Airbus A320neo control systems. The team is committed to introducing new paid downloadable content (DLC) every "two or three months".

Technology

Microsoft Flight Simulator uses its in-house graphics and physics engine while using Microsoft Azure to provide over two petabytes of world map data taken from the cloud on demand. Microsoft partnered with Blackshark.ai, who developed a solution that uses Microsoft Azure and AI to analyze map data and photogrammetry to generate photorealistic 3D models of buildings, trees, terrain, and so on. This allows the simulator to depict parts of the world in 3D photorealism, and others in high definition. Flight Simulator generates its terrain and scenery objects initially from satellite imagery or fly-by image scans. Due to distortion from the fly-bys, color correction and shadow removal were essential. An "offline procedural generation AI" uses those and the data from Bing Maps to generate the scenery and objects for the virtual world. This can be enhanced using human intervention to assemble photorealistic objects and scenery for even higher levels of realism.

Flight Simulator features multiple terabytes of texture and height map data. According to Alex Battaglia of Eurogamer, "Using a base mesh and textures, the game utilises your [I]nternet connection to stream even higher quality terrain data onto your PC as you play, via the Azure cloud". This means that as the pilot flies around the world, the game downloads area-specific high quality scenery and objects which he says "boost the game's fidelity and diversity that I've yet to see in any other release". Bing Maps updates every 28 days, allowing the simulator's base imagery to be periodically refreshed. Its real-time data sources include meteorological information and air traffic updates. In rare cases where certain areas are blurred or pixelated on Bing Maps it "uses procedural techniques to fill in the blanks and make sure there is something in the space". Some other places, however, were blurred on purpose using clouds, filled with generic instead of specific graphics.

Developer Asobo Studio scanned the interiors and exteriors of aircraft with a 3D scanner to create their realistic looks, polished with modeling and printing. Textron Aviation helped with the realism of the Cessna and Beechcraft aircraft. There are realistic physics and weather systems, and utilization of real-world weather data. For instance, if it is raining somewhere in real life, it can rain in-game. Individual clouds have their own behaviours and impact aircraft performance depending on its location within the system. Flight Simulator features a draw distance and allows the player to see storms on the horizon, with lightning cracking inside the clouds. Flight Simulator is the first flight simulator to enable worldwide visual flight rules (VFR), a feature not seen in contemporary flight simulators used by airlines to train and test pilots.