I love being able to see my house from the air. Admittedly, the buildings and layouts in Microsoft Flight Simulator are not 100 percent accurate – something you only really notice when you visit where you live and see that the local park has been turned into some kind of mansion – but when you're a few hundred feet above your house, hurtling towards the ground just because you needed to get a better view, Microsoft Flight Simulator's world feels real. It feels like my street, my town, and I can go to any street, any town in the world, and experience that.
There's a feeling of freedom that you don't really get with any other game. Sure, you can journey to the edges of the map in The Witcher 3 or Skyrim, but you will, inevitably, always get turned back to town. It still feels almost weird and impossible to me that Flight Sim keeps going – Just. Keeps. Going. – replicating the entire planet as accurately as possible. It makes me wonder when they'll include spacecraft, allowing us to view Earth from the upper reaches of the atmosphere. That might be a while off yet, but it's hard to look at what has been created here and not wish for more. I want to explore this replication of the world in every possible vehicle and see it from every imaginable angle. Submarines? My mind is racing.
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But this isn't just Google Earth, allowing you a bit of far removed digital tourism, this is a simulator. Microsoft Flight Simulator was built to do exactly what it says on the tin, simulate flight. People have been using iterations of Microsoft Flight Simulator for years in order to hone their piloting skills, and it's still all possible here. Even if you've never seen the cockpit of a digital plane, you'll be taught everything you need to know to get a real plane off the ground. The dashboards and interiors of each aircraft is lovingly recreated, and while the vast array of instruments and dials can be incredibly intimidating, the Flight Training modes slowly walk you through the essentials. All of the information you need is in the game if you want to hunt it down, but if you just want to jump in a plane and take off, that's fine too.
Of course, it also depends on how much time you want to spend flying. Don't get me wrong, taking off in a huge commercial airliner is very cool, and managing to pilot something that feels too impossibly large to fly is great at first – but then you realise you've only just begun a four-hour flight to the airport you designated. Flying from your local airport to a nice destination sounds like a great idea, all the way up until you realise how long it's going to take, and there aren't actually that many nice sights to see at 40,000 feet in the air. But of course, that's not the point, is it?
This is the problem with something like Microsoft Flight Simulator being on Xbox Game Pass and a dedicated game console – it's not really a game. Yes, you can absolutely decide to taunt your friend by flying a small aircraft into their house and recording it for their horror, which is admittedly pretty fun, but this game certainly is not designed with those kinds of actions in mind. If you are looking for a more gamified experience, however, that is here too in the form of Landing Challenges.
There aren't that many Landing Challenges in the game right now, but they all put you in the cockpit of a different vehicle, and you'll be landing aircraft on unique runways around the world, like icy Alaskan roads, or tiny strips of tarmac on remote islands. The final challenges even give you the same runways, but in increasingly windy conditions, testing your mastery of any given aircraft. These challenges are fun to complete, and hilarious to fail – even a masterful runway approach can see you flying off the other end if you come in with too much speed, as I learned the hard way.
But these Landing Challenges did a good job of inspiring me to actually learn how to control the planes while in the air, instead of feeling pleased about being caught in a tailspin and nose diving towards the earth. The first time you manage to touch down a large commercial aircraft without literally bouncing off of the ground on contact, you will feel accomplished, and if you manage to stay on the runway throughout the whole thing, that's even more impressive. Sadly, the other modes, such as Bush Trips and Discovery Flights aren't quite as gamey, and won't have you itching to return the same way Landing Challenges might.
That's the only real failing of Microsoft Flight Simulator: this is a simulator, not a video game. It sounds obvious, but when it's on a video game console and your only goal is to improve your own skills and knowledge, with very little available to test those skills and that knowledge against, it feels as if there's no progression, no reason to keep moving forward. It would be like if fighting games had a training mode, but no option to actually participate in a battle.
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But it's hard to complain about a perceived lack of content when, first, this is unlike any other ‘game’ you will play, and second, the literal entire planet is here to explore, and it looks excellent. Sure, this isn't pushing the limits of how this game might look on a high-performance PC, but both from a distance and up close, cities look marvellously detailed, and sunsets are enrapturing. We know that Flight Sim has a few performance stutters and issues on PC, and on console it's not too different.
I tested the game on Xbox Series X, and it targets 30fps, but when above a dense city environment, with hundreds of trees and buildings below your plane, a swing of the camera will absolutely cause the frame rate to stutter, and in one instance I was staring at a single frame for up to two seconds – not an exaggeration. While flying over smaller islands and the ocean, however, you won't have this kind of issue. The resolution does attempt to reach 4K, but a dynamic output sees it change depending on the situation – it's pretty easy to notice jagged edges on the wings of your plane after you swing the camera around, but hold it still for just a second and those jagged edges smooth out. All in all, it's an incredibly impressive showing for a technical marvel such as Flight Simulator, but future performance patches will certainly be a welcome addition.
Microsoft Flight Simulator deserves to be played – but it shouldn't be considered essential. It's a unique experience, one that won't capture everyone in the same way, but you really do owe it to yourself to find your house, your partner's, your parent's, your favourite holiday destination, and just fly over. The world looks very different from thousands of feet in the air, and for now, Microsoft Flight Simulator is the only way I can get that irresistible point of view.
Score: 4/5
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Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested on Xbox Series X. Also available on Xbox Series S and PC. The publisher provided early access for the purpose of review.
