Jorg opened up his section by speaking about how busy June was. Kicking off the busy period was the announcement of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 with the teaser trailer highlighting missions, air racing and the all-new sim engine. The movie tie-in with Dune Part 2 was also given another shout-out. Jorg moved on to FlightSimExpo 2023, where he gave a brief recap of the presentation he and Seb gave during the show about Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Before moving onto the near-term stuff we can expect in the current sim, Jorg said that Microsoft Flight Simulator “is the biggest undertaking ever in flight simulation, and it’s super exciting.”
A brief recap of some of the June releases was then shown off, including the City Update for France, various local legend aircraft, and also the Ford 4-at Trimotor.
Moving onto future releases, Jorg announced that World Update 14 will focus on Central Eastern Europe. This pack will include 6 countries: Czechia (Czech Republic), Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia. As with other World Updates before it, this one includes new DEM data, new aerial imagery, updated landmarks (103 made by Gaya Simulations) and cities, and of course, new six hand-crafted airports.
A new Local Legend will also ship alongside the World Update. Local Legend 11 will be the Aero Vodochody AE-45 / AE-145. This aircraft has been developed by Aeroplane Heaven, who said that they had to learn a bit of Czechoslovakian in order to build the aircraft for the sim. They said they are super thankful for the support from pilots and engineers who helped the team build the plane, as there are not many out there in the world. Barry from Aeroplane Heaven gives a short presentation in the video at the 7:26 mark, and it’s worth checking out for some more details on the plane.
Both World Update 14: Central Eastern Europe and Local Legend 11: Aero Vodochody AE-45 / AE-145 will be released on July 25th 2023.
Next in the video was a short community Q&A session. The first question posed to the team was about whether there will be a beta test for Sim Update 13. Jorg said yes, there will be a beta and will probably happen in mid-August. In terms of what is coming with Sim Update 13, Jorg said that Working Title is working on enhancements for the piston engine, along with additional features and bug fixes for the 747-8i. Asobo has been working on improving accessibility and stability. In terms of content updates, Sim Update 13 will focus a lot on previous World Update content and some of the planes from the original and 40th Anniversary Edition releases. In summary, Jorg said this update is mostly clean up and enhancing the simulator.
The final question from the Q&A session surrounding bug fixing the AAU2 beta which saw a handful of issues pop up for users. Jorg said that this is a top priority for the team and is being worked on to be fixed as soon as possible.
In the final segment of the video, Mabel from the Marketplace team gave some insight into how the system works and the processes that are followed to release new products and updates. The segment highlights the entire process from submission to testing and release. In the presentation, we see how the developers who create content submit to Microsoft before it is then tested initially in a test environment before then pushed to a wider testing area. Microsoft makes sure that checks are completed to ensure that metadata and other content are compliant and in the right format. At this stage, the third-party developer will also be able to test their specific product in the sim to ensure compatibility and that it works as intended on the available platforms.
Mabel then runs through specific tests for various types of products in a lot more detail.
Finally, Jorg gives us a final rundown of the roadmap for the rest of 2023. There are still plenty of things to come from the teams, and Jorg says to expect something to come in August which is associated with Gamescom.
Jorg, Martial and Seb will be back in about a month to chat to the community via the usual format. In the meantime, why not check out our interview with them from FlightSimExpo 2023. You can also learn more about Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 in our FAQ article.
