Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Review: Should You Buy It?

What is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024?

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is the successor to the 2020 release from Asobo Studio and Xbox Game Studios. It builds on satellite data and Azure AI to render the entire planet.

The 2024 edition expands the premise beyond pure flying. It introduces structured professions and goal-oriented missions, including aerial firefighting, search and rescue, VIP charter flights, crop dusting, and cargo logistics.

At its heart, it remains the most technologically advanced civilian flight simulator ever created. The new context provides narrative and purpose beyond taking off and landing at will.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is a breathtaking technological marvel with an ambitious new career system, but it is currently navigating turbulent technical air.

Gameplay

Playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is an experience of profound duality. You can still point at any airport on the globe and fly anything from a Cessna 152 to an Airbus A320neo.

Core flight mechanics — engines, navigation, communications, and weather — remain meticulously simulated. An optional, fully interactive glass cockpit depth satisfies the most technical purist.

The learning curve is entirely user-defined. Assistance options, interactive training modules, and an AI co-pilot make lifting a Cessna off the runway intuitive within an hour. Mastering a Boeing 787's flight management computer for a perfect ILS approach in a storm can take hundreds of hours.

Career and mission system

The transformative new layer is the career and mission system. This provides a structured gameplay loop largely absent before.

You might deliver supplies to a remote Alaskan airstrip in a Twin Otter, requiring careful weather study and fuel planning. Another mission could see you piloting a helicopter for a mountain rescue, managing your hoist dynamically.

However, this new direction is also the source of significant friction. Mission logic and AI can feel unpolished; objectives sometimes fail to trigger correctly. The behaviour of entities like fire in firefighting scenarios can appear simplistic against the game's otherwise staggering realism.

This creates a jarring contrast between the world-class simulation of the aircraft and the gamey nature of the professions.

Who is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 for?

This iteration casts a wider net than any flight sim before it. It is unequivocally for the existing flight simulation community — the hardcore enthusiasts with yokes, throttles, and rudder pedals.

For them, improvements to aerodynamics, weather modelling, and aircraft systems fidelity are compelling reasons to upgrade. Asobo has also courted a more casual audience seeking a purpose-driven experience.

If you enjoyed scenic, relaxed flying in the 2020 version but wished for structured goals, the career mode is designed for you. It also appeals to players of management and logistics games who enjoy building a virtual airline.

Comparisons and mode

It stands alone. The closest comparisons remain its predecessor and X-Plane 12. The career mechanics evoke shades of Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition with its missions, or the focused challenges of Farming Simulator, transposed onto a global scale.

It is primarily a solo experience. Multiplayer and shared-world features are present, allowing you to see other live players and collaborate on certain career events. It is not a competitive multiplayer game in the traditional sense.

Graphics and performance

Visually, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is a staggering achievement with demanding prerequisites. It uses Bing Maps data and AI-generated 3D geometry to create a convincing replica of Earth.

Improvements are iterative but noticeable: higher-resolution terrain, more detailed autogen buildings, enhanced volumetric cloud and weather effects, and improved lighting at dawn and dusk. Aircraft models, inside and out, are exquisite.

Performance caveats

Performance is the critical caveat and a primary driver behind the 'Mixed' Steam rating. This is an exceptionally demanding title that pushes PC hardware to its limits.

Even on high-end systems, maintaining a stable 60 frames per second at ultra settings in complex urban areas or during intense weather is a challenge. The game remains heavily CPU-bound in dense scenes.

For mid-tier or older systems, significant graphical compromises are necessary. Widespread reports of stuttering during asset streaming and memory-related crashes have plagued the launch.

While it represents the cutting edge of simulation graphics, smooth performance requires powerful, optimised hardware and often patience with driver updates and patches.

Value for money

The value proposition is immense, yet conditional. The standard edition includes a vast array of aircraft and the entire planet to explore, with the career mode offering dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of structured content.

When it functions as intended, piloting a mission in a dynamic world is unique and deeply engaging. It is also a platform designed for years of growth through marketplace add-ons, from official aircraft to third-party scenery.

However, the justification of its price is undercut by technical issues. Paying a premium for a simulation that stutters or crashes during a critical mission diminishes perceived value.

The base content is extraordinarily rich, but the polish is not consistent across all new systems.

Verdict

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is the most full and visually stunning civilian flight simulator ever released. The expansion into career-focused gameplay is a bold and often rewarding direction that provides much-needed structure.

We wholeheartedly recommend it to dedicated flight simulation fans with high-end PC hardware. They will see past the initial technical hiccups to the profound simulation depth and global scale beneath.

Patient newcomers fascinated by aviation will find a game unlike any other, provided they utilise the assist systems and are prepared for a steep learning curve.

However, we cannot broadly recommend it in its current state to players with modest systems or those intolerant of performance inconsistencies. The 'Mixed' Steam sentiment reflects the gap between ambition and execution at launch.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has the foundation to become a legendary platform, but it requires significant optimisation to truly soar for everyone it seeks to reach.