Microsoft Flight Simulator has all the airports on earth

This is the only "next-gen" game, if we're being honest.

Hellblades Ooga-booga face was meh, Gearbox soon to be trash, deeply unimpressive.

Another Halo, very exciting.

Microsoft Flight Simulator has all the airports in the world, its developers have said.

37,000 airports were manually edited by the developers.

In the video below, Sven Mestas, lead game designer at French studio Asobo reveals the astonishing work done by its airport team, which expanded on the 24,000 simulated airports in 2006's FSX, to the hugely ambitious target set for this year's game.

Expect to see airports of all types, from small countryside airstrips to iconic international airports, from airports nestled in small islands to airports adjacent to cities. Airports shown in the video include the Szombathely Airfield in Bulgaria, John F. Kennedy International Airport, and Aspen Pitkin County Airport.

The developers used a three-step process and a specially created tool to edit the thousands of airports in the game. First up, the developers trace logical elements straight onto the Bing aerial view map (yes, Bing - this is Microsoft after all). Then they draw the airport perimeter, followed by the runway, defining taxiways and placing parking spots according to real world data.

Secondly, the developers define surfaces. And finally, post-processing is automatically applied via algorithm.

The airports in the game are incredibly detailed. They even have animated wind socks that change direction according to the virtual wind. Asobo gave more attention to 80 of the most-played airports, including our own Gatwick, naming taxiways and signs according to official data.

Airport life is simulated, too, with people walking about and vehicles going about their business on the roads - day and night.

Microsoft Flight Simulator continues to look incredible. Earlier this month I reported on impressive gameplay footage that leaked from the ongoing, non-disclosure agreement-protected Microsoft Flight Simulator alpha. That footage was eventually pulled from YouTube by Microsoft, but official videos show off the hotly-anticipated game in an equally positive light.

Halo Infinite may be Microsoft's big Xbox game for this Christmas, but I'm more pumped for Microsoft Flight Simulator. And the first thing I'm going to do when I get my hands on the game is see if it's got what remains of Croydon Airport!

MS needs to hire Denzel Washington to test those Flight planes ;)

All jest aside, while MS Flight Simulator isn't my thing, this is interesting how MS is able to make this outstanding game. For those who love flying sims, I hope this game meets your expectations.

All those airports and still boring as ****.

Now this is how you make a comeback after 12 years in hiatus.

I'm more excited about this game all the time. It's going to be the ultimate leisurely experience. Hope it lives up to it.

Ooh, I'm going to enjoy flying to my closest international airport and nitpicking how the game version's different from the real one. "That terminal building is five meters shorter than the real thing, the runway isn't being swallowed into the ground because some idiot though it was a good idea to build a major international airport on a reclaimed swamp, and the departure lounge doesn't smell like vomit and toilet cleaner. Worst game ever!"

Looks cool. Is there a VR option?

Most likely.

https://uploadvr.com/ms-flight-sim-2020-vr-high-priority/

It's a flight sim, it will have everything.

very excited about this

I'd probably be curious to try the game out, but with so many games, and even a new generation coming, it will probably be a bargain bin purchase.

But Ellie's cutscene face have 1500 individual pores!

Im pretty excited for it. Wonder if it will be playable with just M+KB. I dont have all those fancy controller things that simulate flight controls.

That's true, planes can't be lesbian or hate Trump.

No GOTY for you!

The amount of work and detail they're putting into this software is staggering, and they're already simulating the entire planet. Didn't have any interest in flight simulators before now but as TC said, this is the first truly next gen title so far. Wonder how much hard-drive space it's going to suck up though, and how far it'll bring my GTX 1070 to it's knees.

Damn this game is gonna be epic all the airports ever made

That's pretty cool if true, although I'm gunna go ahead and say they probably missed a few.. lol.

Either way, I give credit where it's due, and that's some mind boggling shit.

Game still looks boring as hell, but rocking some impressive tech.

@uninspiredcup: RT? Really?

Planned, but not at launch apparently.

Flying is fun, but why fly when you can fly and blow shit up while doing so? Shameless advertisment.

VR with a mile high club would be amazing.

Played this at a buddies house the other night with his logitech hotas. It was pretty damn impressive! My cities layout was very accurate. Also something really funny about doing a touch and go on the 101 freeway right by my house lol.

It isn't out yet, unless your friend has access to the alpha build. Maybe you were playing Flight Simulator X?

To give some idea of the leap this is making from what people are playing now:

God damn, that is impressive as hell.

Can't wait for this game to come out. It will almost be like a new hobby inside of gaming itself.

First thing I'm going to do is fly to various airports in California near places I lived, then take a trip to Seattle.

Hey man I love DCS but not everyone has time for a study sim. Literally takes days just to learn to fly and navigate a plane in that game (yeah there are some less intense planes, but they still take time).

*sigh* and now I am downloading DCS to give it another go.

Don't suppose you've tried the F-18 or F-16 planes yet have you?

@MirkoS77: yup he has alpha access. We played for about 2 hours before it eventually crashed lol. Graphics looked amazing in 1440. Not gonna lie...I would eventually get bored playing this but it was such a realistic thrill to play for a few hours.

Sounds like the ultimate flight simulator. Cool for some. Boring for me.

I'd give it a whirl if it was ever affordable. Then for curiosities sake I'd fly from Liverpool John Lennon, over my house, to Manchester, then probably never play it again.

If it's on Game Pass, I'll give it a shot to see some of the features. Doesn't look like something I would spend a lot of time on though as the novelty will probably wear off very quickly. Good for those who like these sort of games. I mean, there was a ton of DLC and content for a train simulator... There's a market out there for sims.

Yeah DCS is hardcore no doubt, probably not many on these boards that're into it, but if you're willing to put in the time investment it pays off in spades.

I'm currently not playing as I'm off a recent move and my HOTAS and Track IR5 are packed up in a pile of boxes I'm too lazy to dig through. I did try to install it the other night just to see how it ran and it kept blue screening me on P-51 engine start up. Ever since one of ED's more recent updates my PC struggles, so I'm simply going to wait to upgrade to begin playing again alongside FS2020. I really couldn't play it at any decent level visually, and I want to.

I haven't tried the Hornet or Viper, no, but the latter is next on my list of most desired modules.

I'm fairly new the DCS myself and am just becoming proficient in the F-5E Tiger II, a great little starter jet whose systems aren't all that complex, especially when compared to the Hornet, Viper or Warthog. Plus it's a blast to fly.

ARRRRGHGHGHGHGH......I want my new rig already.

@uninspiredcup: "Microsoft Flight Simulator has all the airports on earth"

So does X-Plane 11. And it came out 3-years ago.

Stupid comparison. He obviously dialed back the visual settings on X-Plane 11 to make it look as bad as possible.

@dzimm: even if true, when the lowest on one to the highest on the other demonstrates a disparity on the level of the original PlayStation to the Xbox One X, that’s a massive leap. A few more details are not going to close such a gap.

@MirkoS77: Give me a break. X-Plane 11 on its lowest settings versus Flight Simulator 2020 on its highest settings is hardly a fair comparison.

Here's a video of X-Plane 11 on max settings. It's comparable to FS2020, and XP11 was released several years ago.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SE9gd_kP-_s&t=843s

@dzimm: *looks at add-ons in description*

(Aerobask-DA42) Diamond DA-42 Twin Star (Aerobask-Eclipse) Eclipse 550 NG (Aerosoft-EGCC) EGCC - Manchester Airport (aerosoft-EGLL) Airport London-Heathrow (Aerosoft-Maastricht) Airport Maastricht-Aachen XP (airfoillabs-C172SP) Cessna 172SP Skyhawk (BCSeneries-LIMJ) LIMJ - Genova Italy (BlueSkyStar-A320CFM) JARDesign A320 CFM Sound Expansion Pack v4 (Carenado-500Shrike) AERO COMMANDER 500S SHRIKE HD SERIES (CJS-WorldTraffic) World Traffic 2.0 (CSS-xEnviro) xEnviro (ddenn-CL300) Bombardier Challenger 300 Captain Edition (Dreamfoil-B407-XP11) Bell 407 XP11 (Drzewiecki-NYA) New York Airports XP (Drzewiecki-NYC) New York City XP (FlightFactor-A350) Airbus A350 XWB Advanced (FlightFactor-B757) Boeing 757 (FlyJSim-Dash8-Q400) Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 (JARDesign-JD330-10-11) JARDesign 330 Airliner (JustSim-ELLX-XP11) ELLX - Luxembourg Findel Airport XP11 (JustSim-LFMN-XP11) LFMN - Nice Cote d'Azur XP11 (JustSim-LOWI-XP11) LOWI - Innsbruck Airport XP11 (JustSim-LOWS-XP10) LOWS- Salzburg Airport W. A. Mozart XP10 (Nimbus-Lufker) Lufker - Spadaro (1N2) Airport (PilotPlus-EGGD) EGGD Bristol International Airport (PilotPlus-EGKK) EGKK - London Gatwick Airport (RWDesigns-DHC3) DHC-3 Otter (Thranda-Kodiak) Kodiak Quest G1000 (vFlyteAir-SR20) Cirrus SR20 G1000 (VMAX-747-8Series) Boeing 747-8 Series (VMAX-767-Pro) Boeing 767-300 ER Professional (VMAX-777-Pro) Boeing 777 Worldliner Professional (Willzah-HDClouds) HD Unique Clouds Variety Pack (XTrident-B412) Bell 412 (XTrident-Tornado) Panavia Tornado

Yeah.

You've a point, but if my video was a bit disingenuous, so is yours. That 2020 footage is out of the box, vanilla. Not with dozens of paid add on improvements.

Yea, but that looks like shit in comparison.

False.

@MirkoS77 "That 2020 footage is out of the box, vanilla."

We don't actually know that. All we have are marketing videos at this point. No telling what it's actually going to look like on the average PC.

And if you look at the list of add-ons from the X-Plane 11 video I referenced, the vast majority of them are third party aircraft. Most of what you're seeing out the window is vanilla X-Plane 11, just with the settings turned up. Or you can look at the videos and screenshots at X-Plane.com which I can assure you is an accurate representation of how the simulator actually looks.

The point is that the leap from XP11 to FS2020 is not nearly as vast as the video you posted makes it seem.

So, this game is what Microsoft has been pooling all their resources over for?

That's insane, and the game looks damn photoreallistic!

Sim, and why not?

MS have accrued petabytes of satellite data over many years. No other developer can really even begin to compare with not only the abundance of data, but also the infrastructure that is required to put it to good use. Unless other developerd are willing to invest in and gather their own satellite data, set up tons of servers with petabytes of data to stream, how can they even begin to offer a comparable experience?

MS has a monopoly on lockdown in flight sims as far as I see it, because of their incomparable resources. And who would want better? From what this looks to offer, it's a foundation that will last decades. It's nigh photo realistic, and with add-ons to come in the near and far off future, I don't see much room for vast leaps, only refinement. I hate to say it's the end all be all, but this product extends past developer talent.