With the first patch now live, attention has already turned back to Microsoft on the next update and what it will include for those 1 million users who have downloaded the new Microsoft Flight Simulator. Already, Microsoft took to their blog to update where things are at and what the near future holds.
Microsoft has been clear that following the community feedback is an important part of the process and as such, they have shared a new feedback snapshot. This feedback snapshot, will be always evolving based on what feedback they see from across the community. Furthermore, to continue increasing the transparency in which the teams work, they have also now provided a Bug and Issue forum poll so that users can have another way to voice what they want to see changed in the future as the platform changes over time.
In the blog post, they also shared some of the issues that they are fully aware of and proactively working on to improve the experience. Some of the highlighted issues include changes to live weather, the Garmin G1000, fixes to A320 behaviour and of course, improved performance. This snapshot doesn’t indicate exactly what’s going to be included in the next patch, but as a way to showcase that Asobo Studio and Microsoft are aware of the feedback out there.
Also in the blog post, Microsoft confirmed that Patch #2 is in the final stages of testing, with a release due this month. This patch will follow on from the first one released earlier this week. The second patch will focus on the “in-sim” experience, however, a full patch list with notes has yet to be released. According to the roadmap, the update is due to release on September 24th 2020.
Development Roadmap
Alongside the near future, Microsoft also gave us a look into what the long-term plans are also. According to the development roadmap, we still have additional partnership series information along with new ‘Feature Discovery Series’ videos. Alongside that, we are due to see a update to the simulator come in October and also late November. There appears to still be plenty of information and announcements on the horizon.
Software Development Kit
Developers in the community have started putting together their releases for the platform with already a handful of scenery products already out there. Of course, there is still room for improvement, according to some developers, and Microsoft is actively working it. On the blog post, it was detailed that some legacy formats are being restored, whilst all-new now-based particles effect systems are being made to enable developers to build even more immersive products. There has also been numerous improvements to SimConnect, and the documentation is always being improved. It was also confirmed that over 800 applications have been submitted for approval in the store, and over 100 product announcements are currently planned.
Community Screenshots
Finally, as is customary with these posts, a range of community screenshots have been provided – just in case you need to see what the simulator looks like.
