The Aviator Edition of the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 costs 220 € on Steam and Xbox. But the reviews on Steam are devastatingly negative just a day after launch: Currently, only 18% find the game recommendable.
How bad are the reviews on Steam? The reviews of Microsoft’s flagship title are extremely poor on Steam, it’s a dark red “overwhelmingly negative”, only 18% give the Microsoft Flight Simulator, which was released on Steam on November 19, 2024, a positive rating – and some of these positive reviews are ironically meant:
The review with 913 ratings, claiming to be particularly helpful, already explains the problem:
Anyone having trouble logging in: Press Alt and Enter, then you’ll go into windowed mode and the cursor should appear.
A cynical review also receives positive feedback:
After an hour of loading screen gameplay, I can say: This is the most immersive loading screen I have ever seen.
Others add: The Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 runs just like its predecessor in 2020 terribly at launch.
Developers say: They simulated 200,000 players, but everything crashed anyway
What’s going on? Microsoft’s prestige game has launched terribly and there are numerous complaints: Loading times are way too long and there is a lack of content. Some players are stuck in the loading screen for hours. Additionally, certain airplanes are missing.
This is what the developers say: The developers say they knew many people were looking forward to the game, but they underestimated how many it actually was (via polygon).
They simulated that 200,000 people wanted to play, but still, the servers were completely overwhelmed on launch day. Therefore, they had to limit how many players could log in simultaneously. But then everything crashed.
The absence of certain airplanes is attributed to the fact that some people are shown the “critical systems”, but not the optional ones. This is not normal, but is also due to the server.
Peak at release was about 25,000 simultaneous players
Are more than 200,000 people playing the game? According to Steamcharts, the peak number of simultaneous players was about 25,000 – this number does not account for how many players tried to log in to the game outside of Steam.
The predecessor version had nearly 62,000 players at its peak on Steam four years ago.
What do you get for 220 euros? There are mainly more airplanes and airports than in the standard edition. The Microsoft Flight Simulator is an example of a modular game, where you can continually purchase more gimmicks and parts. More expensive than flying is taking the train on Steam: 5 of the most expensive games on Steam – for virtual train rides you can pay up to 10,000 €
