As has become a tradition from the Flight Simulator team, we got another monthly sneak-peek into the current state of the sim, with Jorg Neumann (Microsoft), Sebastian Wloch (Asobo) and Martial Bossard (Asobo) sharing a series of details with the community about the latest updates and plans for the future.
The latest stream was rich in answers to many questions from the community, but the highlights were definitely the new announcements and the latest news about some much-requested features.
Firstly, the team shared some images about the upcoming World Update 5, which will be focused on the Nordic countries. These images show some of the custom landmarks scattered around each of the countries, in a preview about what to expect with this update. A release date has not been defined, but current estimations are pointing to a mid-to-late June release.
The World Update V will also introduce a new partnership between a third-party developer and the MSFS team. Perfect Flight, whose bush flight releases we have covered frequently, will be partnering with MSFS to create new guided flights, to be first introduced in World Update V. So, it seems we are looking to see a few bush flight in the Nordics from the hands of Perfect Flight!
Also upcoming is a new aircraft, which follows on the recent in-house release of the Just 103 Solo and the announcement of the ATR 42/72-600. Asobo is now working on a recreation of the Aviat Husky A-1C, the American taildragger that was introduced in the 1080s!
The plan is to release the Husky around August and, just like the Just Solo, it will be a payware airplane. However, the team promises that this will be priced to be of great value. No additional details have been provided, but for sure we will know more in the coming weeks.
The Husky is a similar plan to the XCub, with a loyal fan base that often rivals the Cub’s significantly higher popularity. Still, it’s different enough to provide a slightly different flying experience, but we will have to wait and see how in-depth the husky will be simulated by Asobo.
Speaking of airplanes, a long-requested airplane has finally landed on the Marketplace. The brilliant and free A32NX is now available directly inside the sim, thus opening up the possibility for less savvy simmers to try it. As usual, stable and development branches of the A32NX will continue to be available to all of those who wish to install it in the traditional way.
One final note about a much-requested new feature for MSFS, the long-awaited native replay functionality. While we already have a few third-party tools that provide such capabilities, such as ‘FlightControlReplay‘ or the freeware ‘Flight Recorder‘, Asobo has been working to bring native replay functionality to MSFS for a few months. Now, this feature has left the prototyping stage and is already working mostly as intended. The next step is to implement a user-friendly user interface, before finally releasing this feature in one of the upcoming updates.
So, the Flight Simulator team continues to make great strides towards an even more polished, feature-rich, and complete Flight Simulator. The upcoming updates promise to bring many great new features, and with more and more developers getting on board the new sim with truly exciting new products, the future is bright for MSFS!
