In a lengthy announcement in their Discord and on the iniBuilds forum, Synaptic Simulations has announced that they will be moving away from having their rendition of the Airbus A220 for free, to a payware model, with support from iniBuilds, and they will be adding Xbox support as well.

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In their post, they elaborate on some of the reasons why they moved away from a freeware to a payware product: “This decision comes out of a realization of the project's potential as well as the ever-growing development demands during often busy and stressful times for our team.”

Also in the announcement were more details concerning what will come with the Synaptic A220 on release, which will feature both the -300 and -100 variants, as well as an ACJ220 variant coming in “later as a free upgrade to customers of the base package.”

Synaptic also addresses concerns about this change, saying “We understand any unfavorable feelings you may have toward this decision, as it was a tough one for us to make knowing the support you have all given us with the promise of a free and open-source add-on. We hope that you will remain committed to this project, as our commitment to deliver the best A220 experience remains steady.”

The Synaptic team say that they will publish an FAQ in the “very near future,” and that they encourage the community to ask questions in the meantime.

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Although nothing about a release window or pricing has been announced yet, Threshold will keep you informed once we know, so stay tuned for that, and for more high quality flight simulation news, reviews, and more!