Xbox Game Studios and Asobo Studio have confirmed that Microsoft Flight Simulator will be launching on PC on August 18.
Xbox posted the announcement through its official website, while also sharing the news through its Twitter page.
The sky is calling. Are you ready to answer?
Pre-order Microsoft Flight Simulator now and see the world: https://t.co/IuOttU7YBa pic.twitter.com/38hkpC8w6q
— Xbox (@Xbox) July 13, 2020
The official announcement also stated that those who are looking to get their hands on the game can now pre-order on Windows 10 or pre-install with Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta). Microsoft Flight Simulator’s Twitter account also noted as much.
3⃣️…2⃣…1⃣
𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒆-𝒐𝒇𝒇! ✈️
You can now pre-order #MicrosoftFlightSimulator on Windows 10 and Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta) today.
For more info on our launch date, editions, and exclusive content, head over to https://t.co/VOSKlCHcay! pic.twitter.com/mtlr8KgFJ1— Microsoft Flight Simulator (@MSFSofficial) July 13, 2020
What to expect
For the record, the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator will be the 11th major installment of the Microsoft Flight Simulator series, which started with the original simulator released in 1982.
For this year’s Flight Simulator, the entire planet will be simulated with the use of textures and topographical information provided by Bing Maps.
Per the announcement from Xbox, the rendered landscapes will consist of over 37,000 airports, one and a half skyscrapers and structures, a couple of trillion trees, and countless mountain terrain, highways and roads, rivers, and other Earth landmarks.
To remain even more faithful to simulating the real world, Microsoft Flight Simulator will also feature live traffic, weather conditions in real-time, and even animal activity.
For training purposes, the simulator’s new weather engine will allow users to utilize the live weather mode.
In this mode, real-time weather will be simulated, and will even account for various wind conditions (velocity and direction), as well as weather details such as temperature, humidity, rain, snow, and more.
Microsoft Flight Simulator will also come with a new Day & Night Engine, which is capable of simulating any time of the day, at any time of the year.
Not content with simulating Earth’s landscapes and weather, the latest version of MFS will also provide highly-detailed recreations of actual cockpits of various airplanes and commercial aircraft.
Each cockpit will come replete with ultra-realistic instrumentation and gauges.
Coming in three editions
The standard edition of Microsoft Flight Simulator offers 20 detailed planes and aircraft, plus corresponding flight models and 30 accurately rendered airports.
This edition will be made available on day one via Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta).
For those who want more, they might want to go for the deluxe edition, which adds five more airplanes as well as another five international airports.
As for the premium deluxe edition, it delivers 10 additional planes and also 10 additional international airports.
Image 1 and Image 2 courtesy of Microsoft Flight Simulator (Xbox)