STRANGER THINGS.
Didn’t see that one coming!
But. FANTASTIC!
Your collaborations have been wonderful/.
I’m on an extended vacation atm but can’t wait to check it all out!
As always. You’re the BEST!
#Historic
There’s people who despise it, but i guess it’s cool to have a game that offers such variety. From serious to casual, and even kids. Hope you enjoyed your holiday and hope you’ll enjoy the Stranger Things in MSFS2024 even more 
I really don’t understand why people get so annoyed with these collaborations. They are primarily designed to bring in new players, new players = potential further income generation, which benefits ALL of us.
I had no interest in Dune, Top Gun (loved the film) or Stranger Things, hasn’t stopped me in the slightest from flying an A320 as realistically as possible on UK routes. For those that are interested, I applaud you, hopefully you will stick around to see what else is on offer.
And to anyone thinking it takes resources away from the sim itself, nonsense. There will be different teams working on all manner of things. Relax, pretend you can’t see the pop up promotions, close them and move on.
Lots of users are still waiting for features and fixes. The last thread that discussed this used a restaurant analogy, which is applicable here. People seated at tables have been waiting a long time for the things they ordered, while the restaurant is busy with gimmicks trying to draw even more customers inside. The double edged sword in drawing in all these extra players with more content, features, and game modes is that these are all things that need to be maintained now, and that doesn’t benefit everyone because devs can be stretched thin, and other parts of the game wind up being neglected.
But somebody is paying for all of this. Different folks work on different things, yes, but corporate decides which developer hours get funded. Do we want that money spent on making a Stranger Things Upside Down environment, or would we rather spend it improving the sim’s environment and weather system? Do we want TV show characters doing scripted mission narration, or would we rather have the existing ATC improved, or the Career Mode finished?
It probably stopped other features and fixes from happening that people were hoping for instead. I think that’s the most valid complaint about all of this.
People have issues with priorities. we have a very broken and incomplete career mode and they release a quasi mini career mode from netflix before fixing the actual career mode we paid for a year ago.
Allocation of resources etc etc
: Sips coffee :
While I over here have been wish-listing all kinds of collaborations and add-ons since the alpha 2020.
I have no doubt the base simulator will only get better and better as long as they continue making it. All issues addressed. All desires achieved.
- History Channel Collabs: Eg. - Ancient Alien Adventures. Custom Locations with Ground Adventures, etc.
- MARVEL Flight: Marvel Flying Vehicles & Missions
- MS GOLF Returns - If you own MS Golf and MSFS you can LINK them together for solo play or GROUP for Multi-Play and contact UNICOM for a reservation
- MSCOMBAT for MSFS: Historic and Modern Air Warfare Missions
- etc. etc. etc.
Cheers.
As a real world PPL holder, I couldn’t agree more with comments, it certainly adds a bit of harmless fun to the the whole experience.
Bernie mission, anyone finish that ? Is it possible? 
This expansion is BY FAR the best expansion that is aviation related, thusfar and IMO.
- Free version of Taog UH-1 Huey for everyone - just about unbelievable if it didn’t actually happen.
- Probably one of the best scenery “addon” I could have purchased: Except it was FREE! It’s like an ORBX Cityscape level scenery on a small town scale, and all of the buildings are very well detailed on a believable elevation mesh (quarry etc.). Except it’s FREE!
- I never watched the show before I completed the missions, and I was in awe of the production level of each mission. The missions are short, but just amazingly well done. Had I watched the show before the expansion, I would have enjoyed it even more.
- After I completed the 5 missions, I was intrigued enough to watch a few episodes of the show - already had NetFlix. I ended up binge-watching the show over the next several days. I now have to wait for December 25th for the next episodes.
- Now having the context for the locations, I launched the Tour Activity to tour the town locations. I was absolutely amazed to see all the houses and buildings as they were in the show.
Although:
- I don’t know how players that don’t fly helicopters in the game could enjoy the expansion.
- Asobo still hasn’t fixed the SAR mechanic for people that like to fly as pilots (from the cockpit). It is even worse in this expansion because there is no 2024 tablet. At least in some of the career SAR missions, the tablet can be used to show your hover position over your target while flying an addon as a pilot. Two of the five missions need to be flown in 3rd person to be able to complete the objectives.
The Top Gun, Dune, Reno, and Red Bull expansions combined don’t equal the value the Stranger Things expansion provides IMO - at least for people that fly helicopters in MSFS.
Yes that’s a really cool activity, thank you team!
I found it pretty much unplayable unless you switch to external mode, and then turn on some assists to aid in stabilizing the helicopter. That’s what this was made for though: gamers with console controllers. Stuff starts to break when you don’t do it that way.
I really, really tried to do it both from the cockpit because I hate flying from external view. Makes me feel like I’m playing GTA. But you have to keep the helicopter inside an invisible box for which there is no visual reference. And then I tried from external view with assists off. After dozens of tries (while questioning my sanity), I just could not hold the helicopter in the exact spot they wanted long enough. Once I turned the assists on, it suddenly became very easy and I just did it on the first try.
You have to hold it in this exact spot near the top of the POI marker. Otherwise it doesn’t work. And if you interrupt the sequence, the entire mission can get screwed up, forcing a restart. There’s no additional direction from the mission, characters or instructions as to why you’re not triggering the hoist once you’re hovering near the POI. You just have to keep doing it over and over again in frustration until you finally manage to figure out. Overall the hoist missions were onerous. The missions are seemingly too short and too easy, until all of sudden you have to hover in the exact spot while under some sort of ticking clock, then the difficulty just skyrockets.
I even managed to land on that little rift island:
Hey, how about your open the door Gizmo and let Bernie in. But no. Bernie just stands there waving their arms around like an idiot until the car explodes.
I had the hoist glitch happen on Mission 5. Even though I had Sparky on the hoist, no amount of hovering would trigger the next mission step, so they just hung there with nothing happening until I finally decided I needed to restart the mission:
I thinks it’s pure fun!!! I don’t get the hatred??? I so wish we could just FREE flight there, but in FREE flight it’s the normal Marion city 
Nuts! How can anyone despise such a creative use of a sim engine for entertainment? (Not questioning the statement as I know it is true, unfortunately.) It brings new people to the sim and it brings old fans back to the show. After nearly four years I started watching season five after blasting through this add-on. Grateful is not too big a word to express how happy I am for it and the Huey.
Well I’m glad plenty of folks seem to like this. I guess I’m an old curmudgeon, but I’m still baffled as to why they thought Flight Simulator was a good platform to advertise Stranger Things. It really has nothing to do with aviation, and Flight Simulator wasn’t designed for this kind of gameplay action, which is why the missions often feel crude and janky to me.
I agree that the helicopter is an awesome add, but I think that’s about it lol.
Am I jerk for thinking a lot of the scenery actually looks really bad? These bland, featureless roads are just pasted on to the map. It looks like X-Plane’s lackluster scenery:
And the oversaturated foliage starts to look like puke after awhile. Yeah the POIs are detailed up close, but then they’re just pasted onto this generic landscape. Looks really fake, and again highlights the weirdness of putting this into a game which is usually played at and usually looks best at 1000 to 2000 feet agl. Hawkins, buried in trees, is completely unremarkable from that height.
There’s very little replay in this. The missions are very short and have a single strictly adhered to path. How many times can people play this? For all of the effort they put into the scenery, there are no airfields or airports, and most of the POIs need to be appreciated at ground level while on foot and up close, again highlighting the mismatch that this is. They’ve locked this whole add-on down too. You can only fly around in the Huey apparently. Can’t just visit the locations on your own or somehow build your own flights out of this. It’s a small minigame inside of Flight Simulator. I foresee even fans getting bored with this pretty quick.
Not trying to just hate on this. I love both Stranger Things and Flight Simulator, and there are some pretty neat sequences and spectacular effects in the missions (which will probably never be used again). But I found the missions were glitchy, often quite frustrating, and a weird mix of overly simplified but then confusing, probably because I don’t have a default console setup.
I really think the effort could have been served better elsewhere. I really doubt this is going to bring any appreciable number of undiscovered aviation enthusiasts into Flight Simulator’s fold. I think that’s a naive excuse for what is just a Netflix/Microsoft marketing stunt.
… Mouth Breather
@SkipTalbot i don’t totally disagree with you. The missions are short. And maybe compared to games with more refined characters and a FPS game engine, the add-on feels a bit janky. The point isn’t to fool people into thinking they are playing Far Cry. It’s to have a bit of fun for those who are open to it. It keeps it fresh. After 23000 hours of flying I keep coming back because flying is fun. It still surprises me. I still get a tiny bit giddy when I see or experience something beautiful or surprising. In an offbeat way they’ve given sim players who are open to it a chance to play with the machine in a manner not possible in a straight sim. The point is to have some fun.
We’re really glad to hear that a lot of you are enjoying the Stranger Things Expansion alongside the HUEY helicopter from Taog’s Hangar!
For those of you hoping to see further improvements in MSFS 2024, we hear you too, and we appreciate all of your constructive comments. Hopefully the recent release of Sim Update 4 has helped improve your experience in the sim.
We’re looking forward to what 2026 has in store for our MSFS community!
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Also,“Government Mouth Breathers” might tell you that you need their “Assistance”, but you don’t. It probably does make the missions trivial, but they can be completed without assistances enabled. However, you do need to use the external view unfortunately.
“Experts” will tell you what and how you should do things. You can always take the easy way. But, sometimes [at least in the game] being a “Stubborn punk *** kid” is more fulfilling - completing the missions without the assists. Especially when it won’t kill you, and…
Especially when it’s FREE… and doesn’t cost you another quarter.
