Microsoft Flight Simulatorfans are getting a potentially exciting feature that is entering testing soon, according to the head of development for the popularairplane-themed game, Jorg Neumann. As revealed in a Q&A with the dev, a closed beta could start as soon as the end of this month.
The 2020 version ofMicrosoft Flight Simulatorhas come a long way since the first entries to the series came out back in the 1980s. The most recent installment left some details to be desired at launch, but has been adding in landmarks and fixing glitches to make the game even more robust and true-to-life.
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The officialMicrosoft Flight SimulatorTwitch channel took a series of questions from the community to be answered by Neumann and the CEO of Asobo Studio, Sebastian Wloch. When askedwhen the virtual reality betawould happen, Neumann responded that the company was shooting for the closed beta, to open in late October or early November. He adds that VR has been one of the community’s number one requests since Microsoft’s announcement at E3 earlier this year.
Neumann adds that a team has been working on VR for more than a year, and that ideally this mode will be released alongside the new HP Reverb G2VR headset. This will be the newest upcoming way to experience VR through Windows Mixed Reality, which is the platform that testing will begin on. However, after testing proves satisfactory on the HP Reverb G2, it will move to other VR headsets so that people can experience the game on multiple platforms.
Microsoft announced VR support forFlight Simulatorback in July, and made the same promise that the Reverb G2 was the intended first platform. At the time, Microsoft said VR will be a free update, and nothing Neumann said in the more recent Twitch stream contradicts that initial statement. The Reverb G2 will have a huge resolution of 4032 by 2160 pixels, which will hopefully prove ideal for the wide view players get from the cockpit when they play on PC.
The flight sim is proving to be pretty popular, enough to be theXbox Game Pass’s biggest PC launch, and many people are enthusiastic about the new content released periodically. That can include more realistic details like Japanese landmarks, or more outlandish ones like Godzilla himself. Hopefully players will be able to experience these details soon in VR, as well as on Xbox One.
Microsoft Flight Simulatoris available for PC. An Xbox One version is in development.
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