Microsoft Flight Simulator Gets a Career Mode, P-51, and Other WWII Planes

Microsoft Flight Simulator will receive an eight-player racing mode this fall. Based on the Stihl National Championship Air Races, the new mode will allow virtual pilots to take control of WWII era fighters capable of speeds of up to 500 miles per hour. Microsoft and developer Asobo Studio announced the new mode on the Gamescom 2021 Xbox stream on Tuesday.

Boss Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann told Polygon that the new module could be available in October. “Everything is technically done,” Neumann said, “so we’re playing a lot right now.”

The event that would become the Stihl National Championship began in 1964 and has been held annually almost every year since. Microsoft Flight Simulator will be recreating its Unlimited series, where pilots fly legendary planes like the North American P-51 Mustang and the Hawker Sea Fury race along an eight-mile runway. The perimeter is marked by brightly colored telephone poles, and planes often fly end-to-end, at full speed, just a few hundred feet above the ground.

Neumann said the new career mode required Asobo Studio to completely refactor how multiplayer works in the game. The standalone game mode is able to more accurately calculate and share a player’s position in relation to others. It’s an improvement that will pay dividends for both gamers and developers.

“If you and six friends want to try some Blue Angel maneuvers or something like this, you can do it now simply because we’ve updated the multiplayer code structure,” Neumann said. “It is a big step for us. And it’s not on the platform, so third-party developers can do their own air races, they can create other things that weren’t possible before. “

The air racing module will also include a recently revised map of the area around Reno, Nevada.

“To put it together, as we say, we ‘fly’ Reno,” Neumann said, “which means we send a plane over Reno. We take new pictures. We have our own high fields. Reno, it’s as clean as it was three weeks ago; as clean as you can. “

Neumann said that Microsoft Flight Simulator it is contractually bound by its agreements with manufacturers such as Airbus, Boeing and Textron not to show that its aircraft are damaged. The same will happen in the air racing module. When players collide with each other or the ground during a race, they will simply disappear and the race will continue without them.

Currently, the developers are still determining how to make these races fair for online players.

“Do we want to eliminate both [players involved in the crash]? Or do we want to eliminate just the perpetrator? “Neumann said.” Honestly, it’s one of the reasons I haven’t given you a shipping date. “

While October is the current goal, the new mode could move into November.

“November is when we launch Top Gun: MaverickNeumann said, referring to the highly anticipated “one-time expansion” that will debut alongside the film starring Tom Cruise. “I keep my fingers crossed that the movie comes out when it’s supposed to come out, but with COVID you never know.”