Today is the day flight simmers around the world have been waiting for months to arrive. Microsoft has released its highly-anticipated follow up to their longest running, critically acclaimed franchise, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

Developed in collaboration with French developer Asobo Studio, the new simulator includes many gamechanging features, and highly-requested community fixes from the previous version, in what Microsoft is calling “The Most Ambitious Flight Sim Ever”.

Headlining features include the all-new Career system, 3D ground textures, first-person mode, overhauled weather and physics engines, and more, adding realism to their “digital twin”. Microsoft also claims that they have drastically reduced install size for this release, which was a widespread complaint about MSFS 2020, to around 30 gigabytes, compared to MSFS 2020’s gargantuan 300 gigabyte install with all World Updates installed. This has been enabled through Microsoft’s full embrace of cloud streaming through their Azure servers, putting most of the simulator in the cloud, including the entire in-sim Marketplace.

With FS24, Microsoft and Asobo have broken new ground by collaborating with many developers who previously were primarily third-party developers, such as Orbx and iniBuilds. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the aircraft category, with 14 different development teams working on base aircraft for the simulator. However, it’s not just aircraft that are getting all the love, base systems have also gotten new features with every vertical obstacle being added in, as well as an Electronic Flight Bag with Charts, being developed by Orbx and Working Title respectively.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is available for purchase on both Steam and the MS Store, in four different editions, with Standard Edition on the low end, and Aviator Edition on the high end. The main differentiator between each edition is how many planes and handcrafted airports come as default, with the Standard Edition containing 70 default aircraft and 150 handcrafted airports, while the Aviator Edition contains 125 aircraft and 160 airports. (For a full breakdown, see our previous article about what each edition contains.)

Standard Edition - $69.99 - Steam - MS Store

Deluxe Edition - $99.99 - Steam - MS Store

Premium Deluxe Edition - $139.99 - Steam - MS Store

Aviator Edition - $199.99 - Steam - MS Store

This release marks the turning of a new chapter in the flight simulation genre. With MSFS 2020 amassing 15 million players and with nearly 5,000 Marketplace creations over its lifetime, expectations are high for the new sim. The Threshold team are very excited about this new entrant into MSFS history and we will be sure to keep you all up to date with the latest news and high-quality reviews throughout this next chapter, so stay tuned!