The Concorde for MSFS is shaping up to be the most complex airplane ever by DC Designs

DC Designs has entered 2022 fully focused to move ahead with the development of Concorde, the supersonic jetliner that will be out for MSFS in the coming weeks (the latest estimate pointed to the end of February). This week, as usual, the developer issued an update to let us know how things are standing right now, with some new WIP images that start to look more in line with what MSFS simmers expect.

Dean Criss, the man behind DC Designs, understands that people’s expectations are higher in MSFS, so he’s looking to deliver improved visuals with every new aircraft coming in 2022 and beyond. The Concorde, being an original FSX/P3D project, does need a complete model and texture overhaul, which is where the development has been focused until now. Indeed, the new images that DC Designs shares from the Concorde look better than the previous ones!

In this week’s update, Dean Criss reveals the immense work that a flight deck such as the one on the Concorde requires. The sheer amount of buttons and switches, with all their respective animations and programming code, means that a lot of time is spent on that specific section of the aircraft. It’s also, arguably, the most important one.

We know DC Designs creates airplanes that strike a perilous balance between realism and ease of use, which often means the most demanding simmer is left somewhat disappointed. However, while DC Designs says the Concorde will follow this product philosophy, it’s going to be much more complex compared to anything else the developer has done so far. It will need to be flown in the right way – there’s a process involved to get this aircraft flying at Mach 2.0 at 50.000 ft, so forget about blasting off vertically into space.

So, we see that visuals are important, as is the flight model, which requires some unique features in the Concorde so that it flies as realistically as possible. As for the cockpit visuals, the current state of development in this department can be easily seen on this new batch of images. Clearly, there’s a lot to be done yet for this huge array of controls to look like it belongs to MSFS, so we will keep a close eye on future updates to see if DC Designs is really fulfilling the promise to improve this often-criticized aspect of its products. Baby steps!

Speaking of DC Designs products, there’s a good variety of them coming after the Concorde. In a recent teaser for 2022, the developer revealed that the AV-8B Harrier II, the SU-27 Flanker, and the A-10C “Warthog” are currently in the pipeline for a release this year.