Microsoft Flight Simulator lands in August, pre-orders open now

Microsoft has announced that Microsoft Flight Simulator will be releasing on August 18th for Windows 10, and it is up for pre-order now. If you are an Xbox Game Pass for PC subscriber then you do not need to worry about pre-ordering, as Microsoft Flight Simulator will be available on the service from launch day.

There’s no word on when the Xbox One version of the game will be released; this is just the PC release for the time being.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is priced starting at £59.99 with pricier Deluxe and Premium Deluxe editions also available. The base game will 20 planes and 30 hand-crafted airports around the world, while the Deluxe adds five more of each, and the Premium Deluxe a further five. Those five most exclusive airports? Denver, Dubai, Frankfurt, Heathrow and San Francisco. Sorry, you can’t land in the UK unless you’ve shell out £109.99. Sounds about right.

Update: Well, you can land in the UK, but not at a premium hand-crafted version of Heathrow.

Here’s all the airports and aircraft included in the various editions:

On July 30th there will be a closed beta test for the game.

The Microsoft Flight Simulator site details the features:

• Vivid and Detailed Landscapes – Immerse yourself in the vast and beautiful world that is our planet with more than 1.5 billion buildings, 2 trillion trees, mountains, roads, rivers and more.
• A Living World – Earth is vibrant and ever-changing and so is the world of Microsoft Flight Simulator which includes live traffic, real-time weather and animals.
• Highly Detailed Aircraft – Hone your pilot skills in a variety of aircraft from light planes to commercial jets with comprehensive flight models. Every aircraft includes highly detailed and accurate cockpits with realistic instrumentation.
• New Checklist System – From pro to beginner, scale your level from full manual to full assist with interactive and highlighted instrument guidance and checklist.
• Dynamic Weather – The new weather engine enables users to switch on the live weather mode to experience real-time weather including accurate wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity, rain and more.
• New Day & Night Engine – Experience flight at any time of day or year allowing for night VFR, visual flight rules, navigation.
• Aerodynamic Modeling – A state-of-the-art physics engine with over 1,000 control surfaces per plane allows for a truly realistic experience.

You may want to check if Microsoft Flight Simulator will run on your PC, and you can check the full specs list here. Stefan had some hands on time with Microsoft Flight Simulator back in December, and he wrote:

“Needless to say, I came away from Flight Simulator very impressed. The series evolved a great deal from its humble beginnings in the 80s through to Flight Simulator X in 2006, and that style of flight sim continued with games like X-Plane and Aerofly, but Flight Simulator is something else entirely with its worldwide scope. This is absolutely one to keep an eye on in 2020.”

You can read the full Microsoft Flight Simulator preview article here.

Source: Microsoft