Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024: On Location at The Grand Canyon  | Official Xbox Podcast

MALIK PRINCE: Games in this podcast are Rated E.

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All right. Made it through TSA, just walking around the airport. Got a little bit before my flight, so you know what that means. Coffee.

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All right, everyone. We have made it to Phoenix, Arizona, first time ever. And the current temperature is a brisk 104 degrees Fahrenheit. I am already sweating, and I just stepped out of the terminal. But you know, it's OK, because I'm going to get to play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. I cannot wait.

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All right. So we are getting ready to load into the Humvees, as you can see right here, for a tour around the Grand Canyon. It is going to be an amazing day. I cannot wait. Let's go, baby, let's go.

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What is going on, everybody? It is Malik Prince, and welcome back to the official Xbox Podcast, a very special edition, as you can tell, because we are not in the studio. We are at the stunningly beautiful Grand Canyon. On November 19, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will arrive. It's being developed by a team that's not only giving you a map to fly around in-- they're giving you the entire world, literally, with the most sophisticated, immersive, and awe-inspiring flight simulator of all time.

Unreal fidelity, improved tech, and of course, the ability to step into the role in a number of aviation careers, such as search and rescue or aerial firefighting or, what I'm most excited about, aerial advertising. You know the little planes that fly over with the signs? I'm excited to do that. So sit back and relax, because with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, the sky is not the limit. And we're going to show you just that.

All right. So we have stopped again here at the Grand Canyon, just for another vista. You might be able to see a bunch of creators and people in the press who are taking pictures, making videos. Be sure to check out the content that's out now as well from them.

The really cool thing about Microsoft Flight Simulator is in the game, the team has done such a great job of providing added detail to the game that you can now land your plane and actually get out and take photos.

Let's talk about it. Photo mode is going to go so crazy in this game. It's like a photo mode of your dreams. So if you've ever wanted to do that, you can do that in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

MALIK PRINCE (VOICEOVER): And then we ran into a rather common inhabitant of the Grand Canyon, an adorable elk.

- All right. So we got the tour of the Grand Canyon. Now we are in the gameplay session room, where tons of creators and press are getting to play the game for the first time, the first people outside of the devs who have played the game, and the impressions and the reactions to how good it looks.

Take a look at this incredible box art for the premium deluxe edition. Just really showcases all of what you're going to be able to do. And you get a double-wide steelbook with that, which is pretty cool.

I'm here with the man of the hour, the man representing the hard work of so many talented folks. It is the head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, Jorg Neumann. Jorg, how's it going?

- Good to see you.

- Good to see you as well. So two months before release. How are you feeling? Anxious, excited? What's going through your body--

- Both.

- Both?

- You know, I would say I've been in gaming for 30 years. This is, by far, the biggest project I've ever had anything to do with. 10 weeks to go, which means there's a massive amount of work left, but what we have is awesome.

MALIK PRINCE: I wanted to start with something that's probably near and dear to your heart, which is the history of the franchise that you're working on. Right to your right here, we have some kind of display that showcases that history. Can you tell us a little bit about what we're seeing before we go into the future?

- So this is actually my personal collection, Flight Simulator. This comes from-- I typically have that standing right behind me on my desk. So these are the first Microsoft Flight Simulators. This one's actually the first one that came out in 1982. Then this is '83. This is another version.

And then it evolved. Here's Microsoft Home, So at the very beginning of Microsoft Home. If you go back in the history of Microsoft gaming, Flight Simulator is actually at the very beginning. In fact, it is Microsoft's longest-supported franchise.

- Good little fact.

- And as I keep telling--

- Yeah, it's a good one, though.

- --it predates Windows and Office. So it is something that the company is super proud of. It actually has the Microsoft name in it. And we're now at the 12th new version.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah. I mean, so much history. It's got to feel incredible to know that you're working on essentially what is the next generation of Microsoft Flight Simulator because this is a whole new release.

JORG NEUMANN: A whole new release. It's a totally different version of the engine. We-- basically, it got so big-- we launched Flight Simulator in 2020. There's add-ons from what we call third parties, basically creators. 5,000 add-ons. We're now a 2-terabyte download, so we had to re-architect the entire sim.

We added an incredible amount of detail to the planet, which we call the digital twin. We more than doubled the aircraft. There's now an activity system or a career system that we introduced because the community were asking for more things to do. So it's a totally new product, a new shape of product. It's kind of unprecedented in flight simming, so I think people are super excited.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, I mean, it's very obvious. Like I mentioned, we're at this creator space, and we've been watching creators play, and it's been interesting seeing where they decide to go in the map. Because to your point digital twin-- I got to fly over my high school. I flew over what we experienced today here and what you're going to see in the podcast, which is here at the Grand Canyon, which is such a great experience. We got in a helicopter. We got-- you'll see it all in the video. But it's just really cool.

So what are some of the other things that maybe people may not think about that you and the team kind of set and improve on in this game?

JORG NEUMANN: The planet, the surface of the planet, is 4,000 times the resolution that it was before.

MALIK PRINCE: Mind blowing.

JORG NEUMANN: I mean, basically, our wireframe looks like it's now a textured environment. It's so detailed. Basically, think about every rock, every pebble on Earth is going to be in this sim. Every tree, every bush, everything. It's incredible. Like, you can literally land anywhere, and it is a very close to real-life type of experience.

We added new things, like animals are now roaming the Earth. Interesting. We populate the oceans with ships. We basically-- transponder signals of every ship on Earth. And we are drawing every ship on Earth. We're also drawing every plane in the air. So it's an unprecedented level of content. Nothing ever like this has been done before.

And it all is brought together by this activity system, where you can basically launch your aviation career. You can pursue your aviation career. And you can start anywhere you want on the planet, somewhere in the middle of Western Australia, or wherever your pursuit really takes you. And then you can pick what pilot you want to become. You want to become a search and rescue pilot or a passenger airplane pilot? There's tons of careers that you can pursue. And I think people are going to have a blast. If you like aviation at all--

- Literally no stone left unturned. And I got to say about the aviation activities-- that's what I'm so excited about. But even beyond that-- because, of course, how much in-depth you can go. But what I would say-- there are so many people who may-- this is the most realistic sim that I've ever seen, personally. That's my personal opinion. It looks incredible.

But even just getting in a Cessna-- it's super simple. Like, you literally take off the parking brake, and you hit the throttle, and you're up in the air. So for anyone who may be thinking, oh, I don't know if I can-- you absolutely can. There's a bunch of approachable ways to tackle this sim, but there's also some really in-depth stuff.

So I'm going to ask you, actually, to pick your favorite child here. What's your favorite feature or what you're most looking forward to in this game?

- I think what I look forward most to is you can-- you've now become a person. So flight sim traditionally was-- you're just picking planes from a hangar. Now you're picking a person at the beginning.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, that's right.

JORG NEUMANN: We actually took great care to represent mankind correctly because this is a product-- there's very few products like this or games like this that is the entire planet. You can go anywhere on the planet. And we took great care. We worked with the UN. How do we represent mankind? So you get to pick yourself.

Then there's a feature that we haven't talked about much at all. It's called player voice. You record your own voice, and that is the voice with which you communicate throughout the entire experience. So other people will hear it. It's awesome. And it sounds super authentic. So you embed yourself in this world of aviation.

And if you love-- I believe aviation and the dream of flying is a human-- a fundamental human dream. And I think we're really unlocking this in a way that has never been done before, more accessible than ever before, broader than ever before. So if you're interested even a little bit, try it.

MALIK PRINCE: Incredible incredible. All right, Jorg, as we wrap things up, any final words for the community? And also, preorders are open today. When's the game release?

- Final words for the community is thank you. We've been in this collaboration with the community. As a matter of fact, we say now we're making this for the community, with the community. This is no longer just one development team. We've embraced them. There's lots of creators out there that are awesome what they do. So we're making this with about 25 teams. And that really takes us to the next level. And as far as when is it coming out-- November 19--

- 19.

- --10 short weeks away. If you preorder now-- it starts today-- you actually get a really cool plane, De Havilland Cl 415. It's the plane on our visual ID. It's a firefighting plane. It's really cool. And you can play that until the 2024 sim comes out in 2020.

- Preorder today. Releases November 19. Jorg, thank you so much for stopping by--

- Thank you.

- --and chatting with us.

- Good to see you.

- Good to see you as well.

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MALIK PRINCE: I recognize a very familiar face off to my left, your right here. It is Parris Lily, a man who knows a thing or two about flight sims. Parris, let me get this mic for you. Parris, what were your thoughts of the game so far?

- I'm loving it so far. Compared to-- as great as 2020 was, this feels like the overhaul that Flight Sim needed for 2024. This is fantastic. I am right now flying over my neighborhood in Southern California, and it's amazing. It's like a one-to-one reproduction. The ground-level graphics-- amazing.

- Well said. And with the best voice in gaming, of course.

- [LAUGHS]

- Again, we've seen so many people--

- As I crash.

- Yeah. I almost made him crash. We don't want that to happen. But we've seen so many people decide to go to their neighborhoods and fly over and notice, hey, that's the local grocery store where I buy eggs and milk and all that good stuff. Is this SnowBikeMike?

- Hey, what's up, Team Xbox? It is SnowBikeMike from Kinda Funny Games. How are y'all?

- We're doing well. Oh, and I feel like I made-- almost made you crash. Thoughts on the sim so far?

- Yeah, I'm having so much fun here on the sims. As you can see, I'm out in the plains of Africa, currently looking to find a giraffe. There's wildlife in the game now, just so you know. And I'm going to take an awesome photo of some giraffes. But first, I got to fly this plane.

- Yeah, and I got to make sure he doesn't crash. I'm going to go over to my gaming station, and we're going to get a hands-on with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. And I'm going to kick you all out, OK? So it's been great talking to you. We're going to talk to a few other people who made the game. I'm going to do my thing, OK? Peace.

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All right. So we are making this turn. Look at that beautiful mountain in the background. That is incredible. This is so cool. This is--

- Hey, Malik?

- Yeah?

- It's time to go to the helicopter ride.

- I'm sorry, what?

- The helicopter ride?

- Oh, I'm not going-- I'm not going on the helicopter.

PILOT: Well, welcome aboard, everyone. I'm going to get going here with some preflight checks.

MALIK PRINCE (VOICEOVER): You all can tell the helicopter to take off because Malik Prince will not be on the helicopter.

- I'm in the helicopter.

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MALIK PRINCE (VOICEOVER): Now, I've always said that I would never, ever get in a helicopter, but in the name of Flight Sim 2024, it was time to face my fears.

- All right, I did it. I did it. I faced my fear. I got in the helicopter. And I lived. Don't get me wrong. I am happy to be back on Earth, on the ground. If you want to experience that, can't get out to some place like this, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. You can do the same, exact thing we just did because it is the entire world at your fingertips.

All right. Now we're going to check out the career mode in the game. Again, the team talked a lot about how they wanted to take feedback from the community, and one of the things the community was asking was for the ability to have more goals and challenges in the game. And part of that-- they didn't just do that. They built an entire career mode.

All right. What's up, everyone? I am back here. And this time I'm with David from Asobo. How is it going today?

- Very good. Thank you. Very excited.

- Very excited. Yeah, I mean, I think I'm feeling that excitement. So we've been talking about the presentation that you've given to the creators and a lot of the press out there. One of the things that I think was really impressive and the thing that I'm most looking forward to are the aviation activities. Can you talk about what the main buckets of the aviation activities are?

- Obviously, I would say the big thing is the career, where basically, you can-- what we have worked hard on is to make it as good for an early beginner, but also for our customers. Basically, you start as a rookie, and you meet the mentor. This mentor will explain you how to manage your career, basically. And the more you progress in your career, the more money you will earn, and the more exam you will going to be able to pass.

And at one point, you will have enough money to actually buy your-- because you were an employee at this stage. And suddenly, you have enough money to buy your own plane. And maybe you will start with a second-hand plane, which is mid, which is not new, which means that it has been used, which means that the maintenance-- it's maybe not as expensive when you buy it, but the maintenance fee is not the same.

And it's another step in the understanding of how aviation works because so far, you didn't had to even take this into account. But now suddenly, on top of all the other mechanisms, which is the scoring of the mission, your expertise-- sorry, your level, your experience, and your reputation-- on top of this, suddenly, you have to manage your plane.

And if you do come back to the skydive game mode-- I mean, missions-- if you land too hard too many times, your plane will start to be damaged. And then you will have to do the maintenance and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that's so important. You will maybe become rich enough-- [LAUGHS] to actually buy a new one and expand your fleet and suddenly expand the fleet in another domain. And step by step, maybe one day, you will be able to buy an airliner.

MALIK PRINCE: And I think that's what I was so taken aback by and what so many creators were taken aback by when you all were presenting it. It would be one thing if you all just kind of added careers and it was like, hey, let me check this off. OK, I'm getting a grade for it.

But you all went further. You went into making it so that essentially, you're becoming-- starting as a mentee, and then you could potentially be an entrepreneur of your own business. And I love the little added touch, I got to say, of the consequence where it is your plane that you purchase, and so if you know that there's a potential for you to damage it, you're more likely to take it more seriously.

DAVID DEDEINE: But at this stage of the career, as you just mentioned, it's-- suddenly, it's your plane. And if you crash it, you lose it. And it's-- the money is gone.

And I guarantee that when you will fly your first person-- I mean, own plane, you will realize that, oh my gosh, this is mine. And you want to take care of it. And everything seems suddenly much more real, just because of that.

- David, this has been awesome. Thank you so much. We cannot wait to jump in. Thank you for chatting with me.

- Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.

- Yeah. Did you know that Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 presents massive technology improvements, such as much quicker launch times and takes up just a fraction of the space required from the previous release? And when you do launch, world updates are already streamed and available. And that includes handcrafted airports. Every free aircraft, airport, and point of interest is directly available.

Speaking of improved tech, I got to sit down with a few folks who know all about it. I'm here with Brandon and Chris, who are actually partnering with Microsoft and with Asobo to make Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 as awesome as can be. Brandon, can you tell me, one, who you are and what team you're on, and then we'll get into a little bit of the questioning?

- Yeah. And thank you for being here for the interview. So my name is Brandon Yeager, probably better known in the flight simulation community as Jonks. I'm the founder of Got Friends. And we're a small team of aircraft developers, so we're really excited to be part of 2024 and bring what we are doing primarily, which is bush aircraft and gliders, to the new sim. And just really excited to be here for that.

- All right. So I just got to chat with Seb, and we were talking about the improved tech and how detailed they went. For you, what does that added effort of the detail that they're putting into this game-- how does that change how you partnered with the team?

BRANDON YAEGER: Bush aircraft and gliders, like I was mentioning, is primarily what we're going for 2024, and the ground-level detail-- it's incredible, right? So everything they've been able to add, whether that is the new-- just the grass physics, landing and grass, hitting a twig, there's trees laying everywhere, the amount of depth they put into the water and everything.

And so we're really excited because, I mean, we're making those low, slow aircraft, and gliding is going to be an absolute pleasure to look down at the ground. And bush aircraft-- that's going to be extremely fun. I think you heard in the presentation you're going to be able to need to make a pass at where you're going to land first, so you're not coming down and damaging your aircraft or doing something to your gear.

MALIK PRINCE: Now, Chris, I wanted to go to you. Introduce yourself and the team that you're working on.

- Sure. I'm Chris Burnett. I'm the manager I'm one of the founders of Working Title Simulations. And we work on avionics and detailed aircraft systems. And for 2024, we've been working on a lot of flight plan work in addition to the avionics packages and then a handful of aircraft as well.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah. I mean, you kind of mentioned that your goal is to make Flight Simulator 2024 the most realistic piloting experience possible. I want to ask you how you're doing this, but I want to set it up in the sense that I watch so many people on YouTube who actually go further than what the flight sim experience is. And part of what you're bringing to the sim is all of those things that maybe happen before a pilot even takes off, the preflight checklists and stuff like that. Can you talk a little bit about what else players can expect when they jump in?

CHRISTOPHER BURNETT: Sure, yeah. There's two big things that we're adding to this experience for flight simmers. And you mentioned a lot of hard core simmers use other tools and things that they do outside the sim before they even jump into the sim. And we're just trying to bring more of that experience into the sim's ecosystem.

So the couple things that are really cool are, one, being able to plan and brief your flight in advance. And then the other thing that David talked about in the presentation was that preflight activities themselves, so being able to walk around the plane, check all the control surfaces. All the things that a real pilot would do in their course of activity, we get to do that in the sim now. And it's really cool.

- What's it been like transitioning from just huge fans to getting to work on the title?

- We all started out in the community. And now we're working deep inside the sim, bringing some really cool features together. And I think it's really awesome that Microsoft and Jorg and the whole leadership team are taking guidance from us, from all of our teams, in terms of what the community really wants to see and what things we can do to improve the sims.

Our team is kind of interesting. We're about half people that came with a simming background, so people who have been simming since FS4, FS5, like myself, and then a bunch of people who hadn't simmed before but got the bug because of how cool Flight Sim 2020 was. So it's actually kind of a fun juxtaposition to look at those different sets of people in our team.

- All right. So Brandon and Chris, thank you so much, adding even more realism to a sim that had it all. Just finding new ways to make it even more realistic for the players. I love it. Thank you so much for chatting with me.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Yeah. I'm here with Seb from Asobo. Seb, how's it going?

- Great.

- All right. So we're doing this little hand back and forth mic thing, but we're making it work because we're here. The presentation that you gave-- it went into such detail. There were literally gasps from the creators and the press from how much you went into detail. Can you give me a quick overview of how you've changed and improved the tech from Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 to 2024?

SEBASTIAN WLOCH: There's a ton of improvements here. I mean, there's a lot more detail, closer to the ground. You see tons of more detail, 4,000 times more detail, actually. We improved the lighting. We improved the general rendering.

- Now, when you say 4,000 times the detail, how are they going to experience what that 4,000 times detail means as far as gameplay goes?

- Yeah. So there's two examples. One is-- so we showed a wireframe picture in 2020. You see a triangle, which is the ground geometry, and with the aircraft, when you drive-- I mean, when you take off, the wheels are rolling over it. That's the level of detail you get. So each triangle is going to be about this big. And so the bumps cannot be smaller than this, right?

With 4,000 times more detail, the bumps are this big, right? So we have rocks, stones, mud. This is all simulated. And you see it in 3D. You can see it. You can see it from far away. You can fly over and say, oh, no, I'm not going to land here. There's rocks. Let's pick another field. And when you land on it, you need to change the way you fly, actually, too, to take the bumps. And so that's one of the big, big impacts.

- Another thing that I really thought was impressive from the demos you all showed was the actual changes to how the wake turbulence behind the plane and/or helicopter has been improved, the tech behind that. Can you go through that a little bit?

SEBASTIAN WLOCH: Yes, yes. So we have now four components which simulate air and aerodynamics in the sim. And so one which has been added is-- it's added to the CFD, so it's the computational fluid dynamics, which was already present around the aircraft, but it stopped at around-- like, you take the wingspan of the aircraft or the size of the blades, and you double that, and that's where it stopped. It's what we needed to make the aircraft fly realistically.

But you fly in an area-- for example, with a helicopter, you go where you come back, it was clean air. And now there's this wake turbulence simulation. It's another computational fluid dynamics simulation, but it's a different scale. It has actually-- it has six layers which cascade from very small to very big. And this allows us to basically keep it there for up to six minutes.

So actually, there is no time limit. It's just that when all the energy is gone, when all the turbulence is gone, we delete that area. And the maximum we've had was six minutes, which is what's actually happening realistic with a very heavy airliner. But the helicopter is going to leave easily one or two minutes behind of turbulence.

And very important for pilots. This is dangerous. On a real airport, you always wait, depending on the-- they will say heavy, for example, on ATC, depending on the aircraft which takes off. I personally once was on final with a very, very small, light aircraft. And a helicopter from a helicopter school just crossed the runway without any ATC, nothing, just like that. And so it was a small airport. There's no tower, right? So people do more crazy stuff.

And so, yeah, we didn't even-- interrupted the final. We immediately went up. And you don't even want to go through this because you-- I mean, there's videos on the internet and accidents and stuff. It just flips your aircraft faster than you can count on the aileron. And so that's very important simulation aspect that we added.

- Well, again, there are so many updates to what you all did as far as tech wise that we can't even cover them all. But I'm excited for all-- everyone-- all the players out there to check out this sim when it releases. Seb, you and the team have done a great job. Thank you so much for chatting with me.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, thank you. And what better way to cap off the night than with food and drinks as newly made friends vibe and discuss the epic events of the day that would turn into unforgettable memories?

And that is a wrap on the very special edition of the Xbox Podcast from the Grand Canyon in celebration of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. We got to ride in Humvees around the Grand Canyon. We got to take a helicopter, and I scared for my life, but I landed, and it was awesome. But more importantly than that, we got to play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, which is incredible. So remember, preorders are open right now, and the game releases on November 19, 2024.

With that, thank you so much. It's Malik signing off. We'll catch you next time. Hey, y'all. Good to see you. Good to see you.

- Welcome in, man.

- How y'all doing?

- Great trip today, man.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, it was awesome.

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