VFR, IFR, and NPCs

2023’s Microsoft’s Xbox Games Showcase has wrapped. Hosted annually by the software giant, the event occasions a high-sacrament of sorts amongst gamers—before whose eager eyes and twitching thumbs Microsoft divulges formerly clandestine information pertaining to hotly-anticipated new titles and updates to beloved classics slated to debut on the company’s popular Xbox platform.

Among the bigger surprises sprung during 2023’s showcase was the news that Asobo Studio is hard at work on a wholly new version of Microsoft Flight Simulator. Predating Windows by three-years, Flight Simulator is Microsoft’s longest-running software product line and one of the longest-running PC video game series of all time.

Somewhat unimaginatively titled Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, the sequel endeavors to personalize the flight simulation experience by offering a broadened palette of aeronautical endeavors the likes of aerial firefighting, crop-dusting, and helicopter sky-crane operations.

In a departure from past iterations of the renowned simulation software, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 comprises a higher degree of interfacing with human Non-Player Characters (NPCs). By way of example, players undertaking search and rescue flight missions will find themselves airlifting realistically-rendered, expressive and engaging human NPCs from remote locations. Similarly, skydiving pilots will venture aloft in aircraft filled with parachute-wearing adrenaline-junkies.

The Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 trailer presented at 2023’s Xbox Games Showcase emphasized the human element of air-travel—depicting paramedics rushing gurneys bearing injured patients to air-ambulance aircraft and ground-crew personnel directing traffic at an Antarctic research station.

The trailer teased Flight Simulator 2024 as the “next generation of flight simulation.” The new product takes full advantage of bleeding-edge technologies such as cloud and machine learning, and will be powered by what its creators have characterized a “significantly evolved Asobo Studio engine.”

Among the pilot disciplines included in the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 are:

• Aerial Firefighting.
• Helicopter cargo transport.
• Air Ambulance.
• Agricultural aviation.
• Mountain Rescue.
• Skydive aviation.
• Aerial Construction.
• Industrial Cargo transport.
• Remote cargo ops.
• VIP Charter services.
• Air Racing.
• Glider Pilot.
• Scientific research.
• Airship Tours.
• Hot air balloon trips.
• Executive Transport Service.

The extent to which players will be able to delve into the aforementioned facets of the flying profession remains to be seen. It seems unlikely that dozens of hot air balloon scenarios will be packed into the simulation database. Then again, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta draws daily spectators in the hundreds-of-thousands.

FMI: www.xbox.com/en-US