The Aviator Edition of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 costs €220 on Steam and Xbox. But the reviews on Steam one day after launch are devastatingly negative: 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, which is a dark red “overwhelmingly negative”, only 18% give the Microsoft Flight Simulator, which appeared on Steam on November 19, 2024, a positive review – and some of those positive ones Reviews are then meant ironically:
The review with 913 statements saying it was particularly helpful already explains the problem:
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A cynical review is also well received:
After an hour of loading screen gameplay, I can say this is the most immersive loading screen I’ve ever seen.
Others add: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, like its predecessor in 2020, was simply catastrophic at launch.
High in the sky in the trailer for Microsoft’s Flight Simulator 2024
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Developers say: They simulated 200,000 players, but everything still collapsed
What’s going on there? Microsoft’s prestige game got off to a terrible start and there are a number of complaints: the loading times are far too long and there is a lack of content. Some players are stuck in the loading screen for hours. In addition, certain aircraft were missing.
This is what the developers say: The developers say they knew that a lot of people were looking forward to the game, but they underestimated how many there really were (via polygon).
It was simulated that 200,000 people wanted to play, but the servers were still completely overrun on the day of launch. Therefore, they had to limit how many players could come into play at the same time. But then everything collapsed.
The lack of certain aircraft is attributed to the fact that some people would see the “critical systems” but not the optional ones. This is not normal, but is also due to the server.
The peak at release was around 25,000 simultaneous players
Are more than 200,000 people playing the game? According to Steamcharts, the maximum number of simultaneous players was around 25,000.
Somehow they probably made a mistake when simulating the server load. The previous version had almost 62,000 players at its peak 4 years ago.
One can now speculate that with the current versions many pilots were unable to get into the cockpit at all.
What do you get for 220 euros? Above all, there are more planes and airports than in the standard edition. Microsoft Flight Simulator is an example of a modular game where you can buy more and more gimmicks and parts. Taking a train on Steam is more expensive than flying: 5 of the most expensive games on Steam – You can pay up to €10,000 for virtual train rides