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Flight Simulator's competitive multiplayer DLC and big free GOTY update are out nowNov 19, 2021 - EurogamerDeveloper Asobo's spectacular Microsoft Flight Simulator has now received its massive Game of the Year update, introducing a heap of free additions alongside its first major paid expansion, the competitive-multiplayer-focussed Reno Air Races. Starting with the free additions, Flight Simulator's 1.21.13.0 update introduces a total of five new aircraft, some very different to those seen in the base game. The Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, for instance, is Asobo's first military jet, while the VoloCity is its first eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) aircraft, capable of pinpoint landings and described as a taster for the proper arrival of helicopters in Flight Simulator next year. Additionally, there's a short takeoff and landing (STOL) utility aircraft in the form of the Pilatus PC-6 Porter, plus the CubCrafters NX Cub - said to further enhance the sim's bush flying and off-airport options - and the single-seat Aviat Pitts Special S1S. Read more Microsoft Flight Simulator gets Game of the Year EditionOct 19, 2021 - EurogamerMicrosoft Flight Simulator will add a fleet of new aircraft and upgrades as part of a new Game of the Year Edition, coming as a free update for PC and Xbox Series X/S on 18th November. There's an updated weather system, "early access to DX12" and a dev mode replay system, Microsoft said, plus new sightseeing missions and tutorials. Five new planes, including a couple we've heard about before, will be added. These include the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, Volocity, Pilatus PC-6 Porter, CubCrafters NX Cub and Aviat Pitts Special S1S. Read more Microsoft Flight Simulator is getting competitive multiplayer this AutumnAug 24, 2021 - EurogamerThere's a lot happening in developer Adobo's stupendous Microsoft Flight Simulator between now and the end of the year, starting with Septembers's makeover for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. That, however, is just the beginning, with the developer having now confirmed two new aircraft, plus a competitive multiplayer mode arriving this autumn. World Update 6, as we already knew, arrives on 7th September and aims to drastically enhance Flight Simulator's rendition of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Alongside visual upgrades, it'll introduce around 100 famous handcrafted landmarks, four new airports - Lübeck, Stuttgart, Klagenfurt and St. Galle - plus new discovery flights, landing challenges, bush trips, and more. That "and more" was elaborated on during tonight's Xbox Gamescom Showcase, and takes the form of a new pilotable plane: the Junkers JU-52. This 1930s German aircraft arrives as part of a new series of paid DLC Asobo is calling Local Legends, introducing new planes well-known in the local area of each World Update, but which are perhaps less well-known to a worldwide audience. The Junkers JU-52 arrives on 7th September and will cost $14.99 USD. Read more Flight Simulator's Germany, Austria, and Switzerland makeover delayed to SeptemberAug 20, 2021 - EurogamerMicrosoft Flight Simulator's next big geographical makeover - this time for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland - has been delayed from its original 24th August release date and is now expected to arrive a little later on 7th September. Originally announced in June, Flight Simulator's sixth World Update - which follows similar enhancements for Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the UK, and the United States - introduces new aerials and elevation maps for Germany, Austria, and Germany, alongside new photogrammetry cities, four hand-crafted airports, and nearly 100 points of interest. Previous reveals from developer Asobo have confirmed three of those airports - Klagenfurt Airport (LOWK) Lübeck Airport (EDHL), and St. Gallen-Altenrhein Airport (LSZR) - plus a number of new landmarks, including Castle Marienburg in Hanover, Holstentor in Lübeck, Deutches Eck in Koblenz, Castle Katz in St. Goarshausen, Munich's Allianz Arena, and the Riesenrad in Vienna. Read more Flying by memoryAug 13, 2021 - EurogamerIn the South of France, about 45 minutes' drive northeast of Avignon, past Carpentras with its medieval walls and its giant superstore its town-consuming market on Fridays, there's a picturesque little village called Le Barroux, piled up on a hill on the edge of the Rhône plain and topped with a chunky, sand-coloured castle, all in classic Provençal style. Behind the village, looming moodily over the scrubby hills and the silent plateaux and the vast apron of busy, fertile flatland, is the solitary, lunar peak of the Mont Ventoux: feared Tour de France stage, géant de Provence, lonely harbinger of the massed ranks of the Alps to the east. In the village there's a house with an orchard of olive and apricot trees. It was converted from a barn in the late 60s by my grandfather, an architect from Geneva. It's still owned by my mum and her sisters. I've been holidaying there since I was born (I was named after the olive trees); I've made a visit in more than half of the last fortysomething years. But not since 2018, because I had a baby and then you-know-what happened. Maybe next year. But my mum and my aunts aren't getting any younger, and the diaspora of cousins is far-flung and thinly spread, and the place is getting harder to use and maintain with every passing season. I can feel time running out on it. So when, inspired by Bertie's question, I finally fired up Microsoft Flight Simulator for the first time this week, I knew there was only one place I wanted to see. Read more Where did you fly first in Flight Simulator?Aug 10, 2021 - EurogamerWhere did you fly first in Flight Simulator? I'm intrigued by the question because I think it reveals so much. Did you fly home? What does home mean to you? Did you relive a trip? Why? And what happened when you did? I didn't go where I thought I would. Eventually I did - I flew over Brighton Pier, over my hometown, a flight I've been lucky enough to do in real-life, albeit in the back of a tiny plane while my brother flew it. It was a present for his birthday (we're twins so I got to go along). He didn't get the whole plane by the way! Just a lesson. And I tell you what: those small planes get buffeted around by the wind a lot, don't they? Oh, and don't do what we did and get an instructor who thinks it's hilarious to let go of the controls so those young lads on board get a thrill. It's not hilarious. I practically shat my pants. Read more Microsoft Flight Simulator will take up around 100GB on your XboxJul 18, 2021 - EurogamerMicrosoft Flight Simulator will reportedly take up almost 100GB on Xbox consoles. The news came via Twitter user Idle Sloth, who showed that if you select "Manage with Game Pass" on the the game's Xbox Store page, it'll give you the full install size: 97.2GB. As our pals at Pure Xbox report, that's just the standard edition, too, so depending upon what flavour current-gen Xbox you're running - the X or S - and what edition you'd like to play, it may take up even more than that. Read more Microsoft Flight Simulator set to receive massive performance boost in next PC updateJul 1, 2021 - EurogamerMicrosoft Flight Simulator is gorgeous but notoriously demanding of PC hardware; however, developer Asobo says it'll be getting a whole lot less demanding when its next Sim Update arrives alongside the game's highly anticipated Xbox Series X/S release on 27th July. Asobo offered a look the huge performance improvements coming to Microsoft Flight Simulator on PC during its latest developer livestream, with CEO Sebastian Wloch explaining the team has rewritten "a lot of the parts of the engine...in order to get the maximum performance out of the sim", as part of its work on the upcoming console version. To illustrate just how effective Asobo's engine tweaks have been, Wloch demoed a before-and-after gameplay video featuring a flyover of Manhattan, captured from a PC equipped with an i7-9700K CPU and Nvidia 2060 Super graphics card - and running Flight Simulator at Ultra settings in 4K with a 40% render scale (jump to the 8-minute mark below to see the footage). Read more Flight Simulator gives Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden makeoversJun 17, 2021 - EurogamerFlight Simulator is primed to make its highly anticipated Xbox Series X/S debut in just over a month, but, before that, there's another huge World Update for PC players, arriving today and giving makeovers to the sim's rendition of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Developer Asobo is promising pilots the chance to explore "vast fjords, riveting urban vistas, domineering peaks, and centuries-old iconic castles" in its new Nordic countries update, which also brings landscape enhancements, improved regional architecture, five new airports, improved data for 100 airports, and over 78 new points of interest. Once the World Update is downloaded (first update the sim, then grab the World Update from the in-game Marketplace) players will also have the opportunity to tackle five new bush trips - one for each of the new Nordic countries - plus five new landing challenges, focussed on Denmark's Bornholm, Iceland's Ísafjörður, Sweden's Stockholm Arlanda, Norway's Svalbard, and Finland's Vaasa Airports. Read more Microsoft says it will use cloud streaming to bring 2022 exclusives to Xbox OneJun 16, 2021 - EurogamerMicrosoft has said how it plans to keep Xbox One going next year even as developers make use of more powerful hardware: cloud streaming. In a post on Xbox Wire, Microsoft said some exclusives set for 2022 require the power of the Xbox Series X and S and so will use Xbox Cloud Gaming to run on the eight-year old Xbox One. Microsoft confirmed it will use Xbox Cloud Gaming to bring Microsoft Flight Simulator, for example, to Xbox One. Read more Eurogamer News Cast E3 2021 predictions special!Jun 11, 2021 - EurogamerE3 is upon us! Last night, Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest show ended in spectacular fashion: the full reveal of Elden Ring. Now suitably pumped for the reveals to come, the Eurogamer News Cast has a stab at E3 predictions. Join Eurogamer reporter Emma Kent, news editor Tom Phillips and me in the video below to find out what to expect. We run through all the major shows set for this weekend and the following couple of days: Ubisoft, Xbox and Bethesda, Square Enix, Capcom, Nintendo Direct and Bandai Namco. There are knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. Such is E3! All this and our usual 'what we've been playing' and 'mug check' segments are included in this week's show. Enjoy! Read more Microsoft Flight Simulator patch reduces download from over 170GB to 83GBMay 29, 2021 - EurogamerA new Microsoft Flight Simulator patch has reduced the game's initial full download from over 170GB to 83GB. In the patch notes for Sim Update 4, aka patch 1.16.20.0, the development team said it had performed optimisations for the initial full download of Microsoft Flight Simulator so the base game is 83GB instead of over 170GB. It's good news to see the game's download halved, although 83GB is still a chunky old effort. Read more A Microsoft Flight Simulator modder is building a tour guide to the entire worldMay 17, 2021 - EurogamerAn ambitious modder is building an audio tour of the entire virtual world - inside Microsoft Flight Simulator. Bushtalk Radio is a community-driven project that adds audio descriptions to over 8000 points of interest in the sim. These audio descriptions are played automatically as you arrive at one of the supported POIs. Some of the most-visited POIs with accompanying audio tours include a raft of UK landmarks, such as The O2, Tower Bridge, Hyde Park, The Shard and Big Ben. Read more Flight Simulator's latest update out now, gives France and Benelux the makeover treatmentApr 13, 2021 - EurogamerDeveloper Asobo has its spruce-up shoes on once again, and has now released its latest Flight Simulator World Update, this time giving France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg the gorgeous makeover treatment. World Update 4, as it's officially known, continues the spectacular work of previous World Updates - which have embellished and enhanced areas of Japan, the United Kingdom, and North America - introducing high-resolution 3D photogrammetry for Paris and Amsterdam, alongside new airports, landmarks, and more. Megève, Nice, and Rotterdam The Hague airports are now present in all their hand-crafted glory, and Flight Simulator's latest update also brings visual and logistical improvements to 100 additional airports across France, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Read more The Suez Canal boat lives on in Microsoft Flight Sim, thanks to the work of moddersMar 30, 2021 - EurogamerFor a few days last week, the world felt a bit brighter thanks to the work of one boat. After getting caught up in high winds, the Evergreen Marine Corporation's Ever Given wedged itself rather firmly in the Suez Canal, disrupting an estimated 12 per cent of global trade in the process (via The Guardian). Not so funny for the captain or the hundreds of ships waiting in line to get through the canal, perhaps. Still, it gave many of us a good chuckle, and the boat has at last been freed - opening up the canal and world trade once more. Yet the infamous boat now lives on in digital form, as Microsoft Flight Simulator modders have been hard at work adding it to the game. Made by FlyBoyRez1 (and inspired by the work of Zepingouin35), the Suez Traffic Jam mod does exactly what it says on the tin... which is plonk a big old boat in the middle of the canal. Traffic will also appear around the boat from both sides, and you'll find some boats parked in the Suez Gulf. Several tug boats will try to free the ship (in vain), and you can also recreate that digger meme thanks to the inclusion of a pair of excavators. Read more Microsoft Flight Simulator's UK update proves there's no place like homeFeb 22, 2021 - EurogamerGive me the world and I'll always find an excuse to come straight back home. Microsoft Flight Simulator offered up the entire globe, to a level of fidelity that still manages to take my breath away. And yet in the months since its launch, despite its promise of delivering a world that for many of us has been closed off, I still find myself patrolling the same skies I've been stuck under over and over again, taking off from either London City Airport or Biggin Hill to patrol the north downs and my little corner of south London. Such has been the way ever since I started playing the beta of Microsoft Flight Simulator, but at least circling the same airspace has made it easier to chart the progress made by developer Asobo and its team in the months since launch. Back then I'd take the route from City Airport and dip left over the Isle of Dogs across Greenwich Park, Blackheath and then home to Lewisham, before perhaps setting off out to the Medway with the sun setting at my back. I feel almost naive for being so impressed by it all back then - Greenwich's Maritime Building was a nondescript block in the initial release, as were the cluster of now mostly empty skyscrapers that have risen around One Canada Square over the last few decades as London wasn't benefit to the same level of detail found in many of Microsoft Flight Simulator's other cities. Now, though, everything's changed. The UK update that landed last week having been held in a holding pattern for a short while makes sweeping changes, bringing more photorealistic cities and a generous suite of new points of interest. There's been some understandable disappointment among players that this new level of detail is more frequent in the south east than elsewhere in the UK, but... Well, as a Londoner I'm afraid I'm not one of those complaining. Instead, it feels like I'm seeing the city entirely anew. And I can honestly say Lewisham's never looked better. Read more Flight Simulator celebrates arrival of UK and Ireland makeover with stunning new trailerFeb 16, 2021 - EurogamerFlight Simulator's third World Update - which points its wand of finessing at the UK and Ireland - is finally here after a bit of a delay, and you'll be precisely the opposite of shocked to learn it looks absolutely breathtaking in its launch trailer. World Update 3 - which follows equally stunning makeovers for the United States and Japan - introduces improved aerial and elevation data for the UK and Ireland, "over 70" new points of interest, five new hand-crafted airports - Barra, Land's End, Liverpool, Manchester-Barton, and Out Skerries - plus five brand-new photogrammetry cities. The latter bring more accurate versions of Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford, and London into the sim, and while that may be a disappointingly England-centric selection, developer Asobo thankfully hasn't completely forgotten about the rest of the UK and Ireland. As you'll see in its launch trailer below, World Update 3 also includes an impressive selection of hand-crafted landmarks from all across England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Read more Flight Simulator's UK and Ireland overhaul delayed into next weekFeb 11, 2021 - EurogamerFlight Simulator's third World Update - which will give the game's rendition of UK and Ireland a welcome spruce-up - is once again set to launch a little later than anticipated, with its release now scheduled for next Tuesday, 16th February. World Update 3, which continues the impressive work seen in previous makeovers for the United States and Japan, had previously been given a slightly delayed launch window of 9th-11th February by developer Asobo as it attempted to address teething troubles relating to the integration of new photogrammetry city data into the game. While the studio didn't indicate the reason for today's additional delay, it did confirm that World Update 3 is now "in its final polish phase" and that its launch has been "locked in" for 16th February. "The team is putting the finishing touches on all aspects of this massive update," it explained, "and we appreciate your continued patience." Read more Flight Simulator's UK makeover now pencilled in for second week of FebruaryJan 29, 2021 - EurogamerFollowing last week's news of a slight delay for Flight Simulator's third World Update - which is set to give the UK and Ireland a very welcome makeover - developer Asobo has narrowed down its launch window to the second week of February. Flight Simulator's incoming third World Update continues the impressive work seen in previous overhauls for the United States and Japan, and will, as previously announced, include new aerials, improved elevation data, new landing challenges, new points of interest, five new hand-crafted airports, and five brand-new photogrammetry cities. Building on those earlier details in its latest development blog, Asobo has now confirmed World Update 3's new airports as Barra, Land's End, Liverpool, Manchester-Barton, and Out Skerries, while the cities getting the photogrammetry treatment will be Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford, and London - the latter of which gets an airing in the screens below. Read more Asobo shares new images and details of Flight Simulator's imminent UK makeoverJan 22, 2021 - EurogamerAt the tail-end of last year, developer Asobo revealed Flight Simulator's third World Update would - following impressive spruce-ups for the United States and Japan - be giving the United Kingdom and Ireland a welcome makeover, and now the studio has shared new images and details ahead of its imminent, albeit slightly delayed, release. Previously, Asobo said it was aiming to introduce 50-60 new points of interest as part of its UK update, alongside new procedural buildings (including churches), and improvements for a range of existing airports, such as Land's End, Liverpool EGGP, and Manchester Barton. Expanding on that initial announcement in its latest blog post, Asobo confirmed the UK update will now include new aerials, an enhanced digital elevation model, two new landing challenges, 70 points of interest, five airports, and five brand-new photogrammetry cities. 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