News - Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024: New sim gets off to quite a false start

Yesterday was the release day for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, but instead of taking to the skies, quite a few players stared at the download bar and were pissed off.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is currently getting a big beating from users, especially on Steam. Only 15 percent of the reviews are positive, which sounds like quite a debacle. But what happened?

If you believe the users' statements, some of the problems from the launch of the predecessor are repeated. This starts with the fact that on Steam the majority of the game has to be downloaded from the Microsoft servers via the in-game interface. And they obviously can't handle this load as well as the Steam servers could.

Other players complain that their download or installation is stuck at just over 90 percent. And if you do manage to do it, you will have to deal with queues when logging in. In addition, the streaming of data, which is essential for the game, doesn't seem to run really smoothly either, with the result that the simulated world only builds up slowly and planes are completely invisible.

On Flight Simulator's support page, Microsoft has acknowledged the issues players are experiencing. “We are aware of user reports of long initial load times in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024,” it says. “Because so many users are initializing the simulation at the same time, we have a large number of server requests. We are working to resolve the issues as quickly as possible.”

“For users whose initial load time exceeds 90 percent and stops progressing, we recommend a restart. Otherwise, we advise waiting to allow loading to continue normally." The Xbox support site, meanwhile, acknowledged slow download and installation times and suggested that players should keep an eye on the live status page during the investigation.

So for now all we can do is wait and drink, or hope that Asobo and Microsoft get the server problems under control soon.