Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 continues to be slowly unveiled by developer Asobo Studio (A Plague Tale: Innocence).
In the sixth 'Feature Discovery Series' episode posted yesterday, Asobo discussed the game's airports. First of all, the starting database was taken from Microsoft Flight Simulator X (the last franchise entry, released in 2006), which featured about 24K airports. The new game will up that number to 37K, or basically every airport on Earth. However, some of them have been given special care as explained by Sven Mestas (Lead Game Designer).
Because some airports deserve more attention, we made a selection of 80 airports based on the most played and busiest ones. We gave these airports more realism by naming the taxiways and signs according to official IDs and providing them more accurate surface definition. Beyond that, in order to take things further, we created a top-level category. We defined the final selection made of iconic airports and dress them up to reach a new level of realism in flight simulation. We created and placed unique buildings and props matching reality, transcribing the identity and their engines, and we even terraformed some landscapes to nest them in their real environment.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 doesn't have a release date yet, but it is expected to land on PC this year and then on Xbox One, too (as well as, we presume, Xbox Series X). Asobo already confirmed that the game is actually very scalable thanks to its engine and supports raytracing technology; on the other hand, Virtual Reality support won't be available at launch but is a 'high priority' for later addition given the many requests received from fans.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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