For anyone who picked up Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 but stopped short of the Aviator Edition, the most interesting part of this year’s anniversary sale is not the price cut on the base sim. It is that the 30 aircraft bundled into that edition are now being sold on their own, split into three packs of ten.
Microsoft is running a franchise-wide sale to mark the sixth anniversary of the 2020 sim’s launch, and it covers everything from FSX through to the current release. There is a headline discount, a free soundtrack, and this new way to buy the Local Legends and Famous Flyers aircraft. We will take them in that order of interest, and the plane packs come first.
The Aviator aircraft, now in three packs
Since MSFS 2020 arrived and until the launch of MSFS 2024, Microsoft published 30 aircraft through the Marketplace: 19 Local Legends, 10 Famous Flyers, and one Expert Series machine. On MSFS 2020 you could buy those individually (and they would transfer to MSFS 2024). On MSFS 2024 alone, the only route to the full set was the Aviator Edition, which bundles all 30 on top of the Premium Deluxe content.
That all-or-nothing situation on 2024 is what changes somewhat here. Microsoft says owners of the Standard, Deluxe and Premium Deluxe editions of either MSFS 2020 or MSFS 2024 can now buy the aircraft in three packs of ten, priced at $39.99 each on Steam, the Windows Store and Xbox. If you already own the Aviator Edition, you have all 30 and can skip this entirely.
The three packs are Local Legends Pack 1, Local Legends Pack 2, and Famous Flyers Pack 1. Between them they hold some of the more distinctive aircraft Microsoft has commissioned over the years. The first Local Legends pack covers propliner-era machines such as the Junkers Ju 52, the Boeing 307 Stratoliner and the de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou. The second brings the ATR 42-600 and 72-600 turboprops, the enormous Dornier Do X flying boat, and the Curtiss C-46 Commando. The Famous Flyers pack is home to the Antonov An-225, the C-47 Skytrain paired with a Waco glider, and the Granville Gee Bee racer, among others.
At $39.99 for ten aircraft, the per-plane cost works out very low for content of this kind, though whether any single pack is worth it depends on how many of its ten you would actually fly. The packs are fixed sets, so there is no picking and choosing within them.
MSFS 2024 at 30% off, the steepest cut so far
If you do not own MSFS 2024 yet, the sale drops all editions by 30% until September 1 on the Windows Store, Xbox and Steam. On Steam that puts the standard sim at $48.99.
MSFS 2024 did not appear on Steam at any discount at all until March this year, when it went on sale for the first time at up to 25% off. Five months on, the anniversary sale takes it a step further to 30%, the biggest reduction the 2024 sim has had. The cadence of these discounts has picked up noticeably since that first one in spring.
The rest of the franchise is cut more deeply, as you would expect from older titles. MSFS 2020, sold now as the 40th Anniversary Edition, is 65% off, which brings it to $20.99 on Steam. The original Microsoft Flight Simulator X rounds things out at 80% off. Both 2020 and 2024 are also on Game Pass, so a subscription remains the other way in.
One thing worth remembering about the base sim: MSFS 2024 launched in a rough state, and its all-time Steam reviews still sit at Mixed. Recent reviews have moved toward the positive side as updates have landed, so the sim you would buy today is in much better shape than the one that shipped in late 2024.
A free soundtrack, on Steam only
The last piece is a giveaway. Microsoft says the newly released soundtrack, Themes Reimagined, is free to keep on Steam until 10am on September 1. It’s 86 minutes of music, 21 previously unreleased pieces reworked from the trailer scores by Finishing Move Inc.
Should you jump on any of it?
The 30% on MSFS 2024 is the clear draw if you have been holding out on the sim itself, since it is the best price it has reached. For existing owners, the packs are the more interesting development, less because of the discount and more because they open up aircraft that were previously tied to a full edition. And the soundtrack costs nothing, so there is little reason not to claim it while the offer is up, and there are some really great tunes in there!
