Today, Microsoft hosted a live stream to detail its plans for the next update to Microsoft flight simulator.
We hear from Microsoft Flight Simulator Director Jorg Neumann, Asobo CEO Sebastian Wlock, and Executive Producer Martial Bossard. By the way, Neumann announced that players enjoyed more than 20 million flights on the new aircraft introduced with the 40th Anniversary Edition. The most popular so far is the Airbus A310.
Moving on to the next piece of content, we heard about World Update 12, which will focus on New Zealand and arrive on February 23. The content of the update has been strengthened considerably since the announcement in November. The whole country is now covered by a new DEM (Digital Elevation Model) with a large part in 1 meter resolution.
There will be a whopping 9 airports made by Orbx and NZA Simulations, Gisborne Airport (NZGS), Milford Sound Airport (NZMF), Martin’s Bay (NZMJ), George River Airport (NZQE), Rotorua Airport (NZRO), Tekapo Airport (NZTL) ), Whangarei Airport (NZWR), Westport Airport (NZWS) and Quinton Lodge (T004).
In addition to that, we will get 62 points of interest and 7 photogrammetric cities, Auckland, Christchurch, Hamilton, Nelson, Queenstown, Tauranga, Wellington and… Hobbiton! 10 activities will also be included.
Below you can see some screenshots including a list of all points of interest and one for activities.
Below we take a look at the trailer for the local legend de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou, which will be released as a pay plane alongside the Global Update. You can watch it below along with a presentation from development lead, Orbx’s Ben McClintock. The aircraft will have 7 liveries.
(embed)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqYgiq5qr8g(/embed)
(embed)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU0g56ZWJ4A(/embed)
Speaking of previous World Updates, we’ve learned that the team is working on improving the cities in the World Update that focused on Canada. Calgary is already completed and will launch soon. There is more in the works. We also hear that the developers are working on a new London as the original was not top notch. Microsoft is not yet ready to reveal when it will be released. Interestingly, Neumann added that a Poland-focused update will also arrive at some point.
Speaking of landscapes, an application called “world center” is in the works. We’ve heard about this before, but now we have more details. It allows players to make changes to the world and especially airport data, including taxiways, PAPI lights, and more. Currently being tested and it will be released to the public after the developers determine that everything is working as intended.
Sim Update 12 is scheduled for March 14, but the team isn’t sure it will arrive on time. The update will focus on stability and will include the highly anticipated support for WASM, two additional languages, Korean and Turkish, as well as fixes for the 40th Anniversary Edition and previous world updates, improvements to helicopters and gliders, an increase in the number of max aircraft engines to 16, fixes to legacy flight model, and improvements to thermals and turbulence.
Below is a visualization of the improvements in thermals and turbulence with an explanation of the improvements by Sebastian Wloch. Interestingly, we’ll get an option to control the amount of turbulence between realistic, medium, and low.
(embed)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSe8SbeZJ_M(/embed)
Then we get the reveal of the Famous Flyer 5 aircraft. At last, we have the Antonov An-2 from AT Simulations, which was announced a while back. The license agreement with Antonov has finally been finalized. You can check out a trailer and some screenshots below, and the plane will launch on March 14 alongside Sim Update 12.
(embed)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02lA_rZSuW8(/embed)
However, this was not Antonov’s only surprise (nor the biggest). The famous Flyer 4 will be the Antonov An-225 Mriya developed by iniBuilds. You can check out a trailer below, a presentation by legendary pilot and An-225 captain Dmytro Antonov, and another by Cameron MacMillan of iniBuilds, who gives a great look at the plane itself.
(embed)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKOVHvy9Fd0(/embed)
(embed)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnDMEyQ_avA(/embed)
(embed)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rg9oBYuxTA(/embed)
It will be a pay plane, priced at 19.99. The intention is to send all the proceeds to Antonov so that they can be used to rebuild the royal Mriya. Microsoft plans to release it for PC on the anniversary of the destruction of the actual plane during the invasion of Ukraine on February 27. It will be released a bit later on Xbox on March 14, as it requires the WASM implementation that comes with the Sim Update. 12
As a consequence of the launch of these aircraft, the ATR 42/72, which was originally scheduled for March, has been delayed until April.
Lastly, we got a promise from Neumann that the team is working on improving the release time of third-party plugins on the official Marketplace, which has been very slow. Going forward, Microsoft will not wait for the localization of plugins to release them and is currently hiring to add more manpower to the dedicated team. Improvements will also be made to discoverability and the ability for customers to better qualify products for sale.
Microsoft flight simulator It is currently available for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox Cloud Gaming, including Game Pass. If you want to learn more, you should keep an eye on TechRaptor as we host daily Microsoft flight simulator news to keep you up to date on the many addons coming and being released for the simulator.