Microsoft Flight Simulator Out Now for Xbox Series X|S - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 27 July 2021 / 1,597 Views
Publisher Microsoft and developer Asobo Studio has released Microsoft Flight Simulator on the Xbox Series X|S. It is also available on Xbox Game Pass. The game first released for PC on August 18, 2020.
"From light planes to wide-body jets, you’ll test your piloting skills against the challenges of real-time weather including accurate wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity, rain, and lightning – all in a dynamic and living world," said the Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann via Xbox Wire.
"With the power of satellite data from Bing Maps and cloud-based AI using Azure, you’ll travel the entire planet in amazing detail with over 37 thousand airports, 2 million cities, 1.5 billion buildings, real mountain ranges, roads, trees, rivers, animals, traffic, and more. Simmers can expect the same level of depth as the PC version, with the most authentic and realistic flight simulator we have ever created and available to the widest audience ever."
View the launch trailer below:
Here is an overview of the game:
Discovery Flights: Newcomers can easily enter the world of Microsoft Flight Simulator and experience some of the most impressive wonders of our planet, including awe-inspiring locations like the Great Pyramid of Giza and Mount Everest, or vibrant cities like Naples and Rio de Janeiro. Start in the air and off you go.
World Exploration Improvements: Many users love to explore the planet in Microsoft Flight Simulator, and we’ve further enhanced that experience. The world map now features satellite imagery, map labels, and main Point of Interest (POI) names to make exploring the world (and even finding your house) as easy as possible. We extended this capability into the flight experience itself and users can now activate the POI labels during a flight, so they can get a sense for the spatial relationships between cities, mountains, and other landmarks.
Flight Training: We significantly improved our flight training to ensure a smoother learning curve and make them more snack-sized and by adding a new performance evaluation system. We now have 22 training flights that teach users the fundamentals of flying starting with basic handling, to landing and takeoff, VFR navigation and learning how to fly an airliner like the Airbus 320neo. We also added more contextual voiceovers to help explain elements and provide feedback.
Flight Assistance: We are introducing an extremely useful new tool called the Flight Assistant that provides AI help during flight:
- You can select nearby POIs or airports and set them as your destination to get direction.
- You can use it to let the AI auto land your plane.
- You can use it for auto-trimming and anti-stall.
Land Anywhere: In most flight simulators, take off and landing at an airport can be complex and intimidating for newcomers. 71% of our planet is water, so we added water landing options. We revamped several of our planes and incorporated optional floaters, skis and a “large tires” feature so you can land almost anywhere.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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This game is boring and frustrating. With that said, its fun to play while listening to a podcast, news, etc.
Great game, horrible price tag.
It's on gamepass lol
That's how i am playing it, i want to buy it but its steep.
Can it run 60fps at 1080p?
Optional 60 fps would be nice. Might need more compromises than resolution though.
Not even with dlss?
According to Digital Foundry, performance varies between the Series X and Series S. On the X, it only runs at 30 FPS, but resolution is a native 1440p and is presented in 4K. On the S, it's a 1080p and 30 FPS game. However, the two games use the equivalent of different graphical settings, which makes the Series X show more detail regardless of resolution while the Series S is a more stable experience.
There is also an unlocked performance mode available on both versions, which can see framerates of 90 to 120 FPS, but with drops to as low as 50 FPS.
Overall though, this is not a bad compromise. Microsoft Flight Simulator was a very demanding game, and even a lot of gaming PC's couldn't run it particularly well last year. So the fact that they managed to mostly translate the experience to the Series X and bring reasonable compromises for the Series S is impressive.
Note you need your PC peripherals. The menus on console do not work with a controller.
Not sure why I’m getting downvoted for saying that, its a simple statement of fact. Seems people are blaming the messenger.
The console menu only works if you plug a mouse into your Xbox or another PC peripheral. Trying to navigate them with a controller literally doesn’t work, as the right thumbstick doesn’t register and you can’t select the menu options properly - as annoying as that is on a console game.
I challenge the people downvoting me to try it with just a controller and see how they get on.
Looking at user reviews its seems like the UI is buggy or not working for some users. I've noticed some glitches, but I am playing the game with a gamepad.
Rather odd that its broken for some users and not others then. The controller works just fine once I actually get to flying a plane, but the menus are pretty much inoperable with one.
Not entirely unusual though. I remember seeing similar complaints with Grounded.
Looking at the game’s twitter account, looks to be related to controller layout settings and needing to switch to/from default mapping. I will try that. I seem to remember changing my control layout when I played the PC version so that might explain it.
Essay Pro