14 DAY TRIAL // Flight Simulator is one of Microsoft's oldest pieces of software. This one's older than Windows and Office, as the first game was launched back in 1979, and the series is still running with the next game launching next year.
The last Microsoft Flight Simulator game was launched 13 years ago, so we were quite surprised when the Redmond-based company revealed the new Microsoft Flight Simulator game at E3 2019 back in June.
The upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator game is unlike any previous titles in the series and a very ambitious project we might add. Polygon had the chance to play a demo of an early version of the game and they were quite impressed by what Microsoft wants to do with Flight Simulator.
Developed by Asobo Studio, Microsoft Flight Simulator heavily relies on Bing Maps dataset to obtain satellite imagery and 3D photogrammetry data. The game is created so that it offers players not only all of the Earth's 197 million square miles of land and water but also more than 2 million cities and over 40,000 individual airports.
All these are possible thanks to Microsoft's Bing Maps and Azure cloud services. Apparently, everything looks incredible from the cockpit of a Cessna 172, the plane that Polygon flew over Seattle.
Apparently, instead of downloading a large portion of the game or putting it on X number of discs, players will stream in assets while they play it. Developers of the game are already trying to find solutions to let players pre-load certain areas of the world ahead of time, which will reduce the waiting time on slower connections and, eventually, enable offline play.
But there's more, as Microsoft Flight Simulator will feature live weather pulled from Bing, which will provide players with realistic simulation. Players will use information like wind speed and direction, humidity, precipitation, and other factors to safely pilot their planes.
There's a lot of complexity that Asobo is adding to Microsoft Flight Simulator, which makes it look like a platform rather than a game. But if you're into such games, you won't have to wait too long to be able to try out Microsoft Flight Simulator, as the game is scheduled for release in 2020.