We were all pretty amazed in 202 when Microsoft Flight Simulator let us fly around a photorealistic, 1:1 scale planet Earth with real-time weather. Today, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is being released, and this time around its developers want you to spend a lot more time with your feet on the ground. Once you land in MFS 2024, you can exit your plane, walk around, and even take pictures of wildlife. That means a whole new level of simulation, as Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann told PC Gamer last week.
"Our ambition was, hey, we need to look as good as a regular first-person shooter, at least," Neumann said. To accomplish this, the team analyzed satellite data and "we marked up 28,000 tiles. We said, this is sand, this is pebbles, this is little rocks, this is asphalt, this is grass, this is tall grass. So we did that, 28,000 tiles, I think they're 100 by 100 meters. And then we fed that into the system."
"We know where every bush is, and every tree."
Jorg Neumann, Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator
That's a staggering amount of data, which I imagine is necessary when you're not just simulating the airspace of the planet but all the stuff on the ground as well. "We know where every bush is, and every tree, we do know that," Neumann said. "So we have 3 trillion trees. We now have very good confidence that we know where the rocks are, and those types of things."
What does all that detail mean, besides the fact that you'll get a realistic world to walk around on and take pictures of? Increasing the resolution of the ground by a factor of 4,000, Neumann said, means the game can accurately simulate what it's like to land on those different surfaces like pavement, dirt, plowed fields, and even snow.
"The reality is, if you land on a field that is plowed, you'll crash your plane. Depends on the weight, but typically, if it's a light plane, you will probably nose-dive forward. So now we have every rock, literally every little rock, and your tires will hit them physically."
While Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is simulating all those rocks and trees and plowed fields, it did get a little help when it comes to wildlife.
"I've worked with Frontier Developments for a long time," Neumann. "I don't know if you know those guys, but they make Planet Zoo, amongst other things. And I called my friend, the CEO. His name is Jonny [Watts], and I said, Hey, Jonny, I'm working on Flight Sim, can I have your animals from Planet Zoo? And he's like, yeah, why not? We actually grabbed all the Planet Zoo animals and stuck them into our world, which is cool, you know?"
I think that is cool, actually, and I'd be delighted to know if game devs regularly call each other up and borrow things from each other. "Hello, is this World of Tanks? I need some tanks. Can I… can I please have some of your tanks?" It would certainly save time, especially if your team is already busy simulating 3 trillion trees. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 launches today on Windows and Steam.
