2020 has been a bad year for a lot of different things, one of those being entertainment in general. With places like movie theaters and other forms of popular entertainment being closed, more people were stuck at home playing video games.

The thing is that not very many good games have come out this year, but Microsoft announced that the latest version of Flight Simulator was releasing this year and people finally had a game to look forward to. Boasting some very impressive features like real-time simulated weather, an ultra realistic flight system, and a map that is a simulation of the entire globe, this new take on the flight simulator is set to be one of the most groundbreaking and interesting games of the year so far.

Microsoft’s flight sim series has been around for a while now, with the first game in the series coming out in 1982. This first game consisted of a plane’s instrument panel that took up half of the screen, variable time of day that you had to control, and a simple weather system. There were other “games” after the first, but they were basically just small updates to the original game. But then Microsoft Flight 5.0 came out and was the first game in the series to have 3d models and textures.

Multiple years later, Microsoft Flight Simulator X released. That game ended up becoming one of the most popular flight sims in the world, and at the time of release, was the most realistic flight simulator. Of course by today’s standards those games are outdated, some more than others, but they laid the foundation for a series of very realistic simulators that are sometimes even used by real pilots to sharpen their skills.

Skipping ahead to the present day we now have Flight Simulator 2020, the most ambitious and ground breaking addition to the series yet. Released on August 18, 2020 by Xbox Game Studios and developed by Asobo Studio, this new flight simulator had many impressive features such as a simulated version of the entire world created using satellite data from Bing Maps. So yeah, you actually can go anywhere in the entire world, even your own house if you wanted to.

The game also has stunning graphics and amazing visual detail from up above using Azure Cloud to further stimulate higher-fidelity graphics, even some well-known locations such as New York City or London will have an even higher quality of detail through use of photographic information to create higher quality textures.

The game also features real weather simulated in real time. The flight sim team worked closely with weather data company Meteoblue to develop this impressive system. To put it simply, they divided the globe into a few hundred boxes and each box measures wind speed, temperature, humidity, pressure and a long list of other factors.

With all of this data, the game is able to simulate exactly what the weather’s like anywhere in the world, but that’s where the realism of the game’s weather ends. For instance, If it’s raining and you’re inside the cockpit, you’ll notice the rain droplets go across the windows; but that isn’t just an effect, there is a whole physics system that measures about the same things as the weather factors. The system is then used to simulate exactly how each individual droplet would go across the window in real life.

As you could assume by now, Microsoft Flight Simulator is intensely realistic. So realistic in fact you could technically learn how to fly a real plane using this game. For example, in the games settings you can find controls for all the different buttons that might be in a real plane. You also of course have the basic flight controls like the yoke and pedals. The yoke controls pitch (up and down) and roll. The pedals control yaw (left and right). Asobo has created an all new realistic flight model that can actively adapt based on various factors such as the kind of plane you’re flying or what the weather is like.

While learning to fly only using this game is possible, real pilots most likely wouldn’t recommend that, as they would only use something like this only for practice. Most people will probably just play it just for entertainment anyway because it’s also just a fun game.

So that’s Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, a great game and simulator that anyone can enjoy. Showcasing next-gen video game graphics and features, this game is truly groundbreaking.  I would definitely recommend that you at least try this game out if you have a good computer or an Xbox, all you need to do is get the Xbox Game Pass, which is only $1 for your first month.