MSFS 2024 Release date: 19th November 2024
See below for the confirmed features and content of MSFS 2024. Sources are from the MS/Asobo presentations at FlightSimExpo 2023 and 2024 and Dev Q&A sessions.
Core Sim:
- New aerodynamic engine, including fully customizable surfaces on the planes, this can easily be added by third-party plane makers
- New CFD, 6 minutes of history per aircraft (wind flow simulation), including affecting things like grass and wake turbulence
- Fully featured flight planner, available both in the sim (including when you are in-flight) but also through web (by Working Title), including monitoring of flight (real-time location etc), graphical and text based route planning, fuel and payload planning, vertical profile planning, ETOPS planning, weather and airport information, NOTAMs, VFR (including overlay charts), map feature VFR and IFR views, VFR and IFR navlogs etc
- Updated systems (electrical, pneumatic, fuel and hydraulic)
- Failure, wear and tear system
- Payload and passenger system overhaul
- Deeper and wider avionics packages, including Primus Epic 2 avionic system (by Working Title)
- Accurate live traffic + more real liveries (United, Spirit, KLM seen in the trailer)
- More control for aircraft creators
- Walk outside of the aircraft, you can now walk out of the aircraft, included in pre-flight checklist to inspect plane etc
- Replay tool, Flight Control Replay by Fabio will now be integrated in MSFS 2024 to give a proper replay tool, including instant replays, saving replays, support for formation flying and more
- New avatars, much more realistic, great number of models representing the whole world included
- New plane models for AI traffic etc
- Balloons and air ships (zeppelins)
- Assign controller profiles per aircraft
- Helicopter improvements (such as turbine engine improvements etc)
Technology:
- Thin client, less to download, faster loading times, helps keep min specs low
- New physics (including simulation of ropes, cargo from helicopters, mesh in balloons etc, ground physics, as an example going across grass will feel different than a taxiway
- Greatly improved lightning engine
- Performance improvements, multi-threaded
- Backwards-compatible (community folder still there)
- Ray-tracing
- New rendering system of rotors
Weather:
- Cirrus clouds
- Aurora borealis, fully simulated
- Tornados and improved storms
- Improved lightning will enhance clouds greatly
The World:
- 3D tessellated ground materials, type of terrain matters, grass and vegetation in 3D
- Greatly enhanced tree/fauna diversity with almost 30 different biomes
- 20 3D crops
- More TIN technology outside the cities, this will be an ongoing process and is at first focused on national parks, famous mountains etc, but will keep expanding and the goal is to have this all across the globe in the future
- Full seasons
- Animals herds and migration
- World live ship traffic and new ship models with Global Ship AI Traffic (GAIST) by Henrik Nielsen and Kai Patrick Kamjunke, working on this full-time now, powered by data from Spire
- 3D waves that are synched with ships
- Water looking better due to the new lightning
- Vertical obstacles brought by PuffinFlight (We Love VFR addon) and Orbx, a new DB is built (that doesn’t exist anywhere today), includes antennas, chimneys etc, will cover the whole globe
- Improved vehicle traffic
- All oilrigs across the globe included (different models)
- People walking inside airports, jet bridges and even into the planes, this can be used through the SDK by any third-party devs
Aviation Activity System (Missions/Career):
- As seen in the 2024 announcement trailer, accurate sim/aviation representation, working with organizations/experts in these areas
- Going through certifications etc, not game-like at all
- Red Bull Air Racing
- STIHL National Championship Air Races (former Reno Air Races), including the new location in Roswell, New Mexico, will be included in the base sim now
- Commercial flights, air ambulance, scientific aviation, VIP services, aerial advertising, agricultural aviation, cargo aviation, rescue aviation etc
Planes/helicopters/gliders included in the base sim:
- Aerolvira Optica (Got Friends) - Updated/improved
- Airbus A300-600ST Beluga (iniBuilds)
- Airbus A330 (inibuilds) - 200,300, GE, RR
- Airbus 400-M (iniBuilds)
- Boeing 737 Max-8 (Asobo)
- Cessna 188 (Carenado)
- Cessna 208 Caravan (Asobo)
- Cirrus Vision SF50 (FlightFX)
- Cirrus SR22 (FligthFX) - Updated/improved
- CL-415 (Asobo)
- DracoX by Mike Patey (Got Friends)
- Edge 540 v2 and v3 (iniBuilds)
- Erickson S-64 (Blackbird)
- Fairchild A10 (DC Design)
- H125 (Asobo)
- Jetson ONE
- MXS-R (iniBuilds)
- Pilatus PC12 (Carenado)
- Robinson 66 (Carenado)
- Stemme S12G (Got Friends)
- Twin Otter (Aerosoft) - Rebuild/improved based on the Aerosoft one
New/updated airports:
- All glider airports and helipads in the world now included
- Aspen/KASE, Colorado, USA (Gaya)
- Donegal/EIDL, Ireland (Gaya)
- JFK/KJFK, New York, USA (Gaya)
Misc:
- Biggest sim ever made, 500 people working on it. 2020 reached the limit technology wise, hence the new edition.
- MSFS 2020 supported until 2028 with updates
Sources:
https://youtu.be/VPhScg_FINE (Flight Sim Expo 2023)
Microsoft Flight Simulator Development Update - Live from FlightSim Expo 2024 - YouTube
June 2024 Developer Stream (youtube.com)
April 2024 Developer Live Stream (youtube.com)
March 2024 Developer Live Stream (youtube.com)
Wow! Blown-away with all this, huge improvements, hype is real!
maybe they partner with them now on the new version:
