Shock.
That was what I felt when my good friend Drew (Bel Geode) sent me a message saying “MSFS 2024?” with a link.
My first reaction was “Ah, must be someone trying to rip the community off or some clickbait by someone that’s trying to make some more cents on YouTube”.
Oh boy. It was not and it took me a few seconds to digest what I was looking at.
Firefighting, search and rescue with a hoist, cargo sling loading, air ambulance, agricultural missions, aerial construction, the list went on and on and a lot of that stuff was specifically for helicopters.
That trailer is amazing.
After the initial shock. And the second shock after watching all the new features, I started wondering about the same things most of us probably wondered about too.
Is this an update or a new version? Will previous add-ons be compatible?
I first thought it was an update, but then Microsoft slowly started to clarify things a bit more on Twitter and on their FAQ too.
This is a new version, and it is compatible with MSFS (2020) add-ons. Well, most add-ons should be compatible. As Microsoft puts it, “With very few exceptions, virtually all add-ons that work in Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) today will function in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.”.
People won’t have to rebuy addons either.
And, if you think about it, this goes in line with what happened already before Microsoft left the market. Remember FS95, FS98, FS2000, FS2002, FS2004, FSX? All those different versions that were released and add-ons that were bought for the previous version didn’t have to be bought for the new version?
Of course, there were breaking changes back then as technology progressed far quicker than today and things had to be broken. Fortunately, Microsoft seems to be trying to keep things easy to maintain and upkeep.
This doesn’t mean it will be always like this and some breaking changes will eventually occur. And that’s not a bad thing. Progress has to be made if we want the product to thrive and respond to our needs. It can’t just be stale for the sake of safeguarding old addons. Fortunately, those breaks are not coming yet.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 seems to be focused on bringing a career mode, which will allow us to perform a bunch of different tasks. This makes me wonder about a bunch of things:
- Will this mode focus on a single line of work or do we jump from job to job? Will I be able to be a SAR pilot through that career or do I perform SAR, then firefighting, then air ambulance, and so on?
- Can we play those missions outside a structured career mode?
- Are those missions purely scripted or are there randomly generated missions as well?
I know these are tough questions, especially because of the implications they have: a random-mission generator? That’s not something easy to do. But it would be amazing to see and have it in the sim. Considering everything we have seen Microsoft and Asobo do so far, that sounds like the logical next step to me.
When MSFS was first announced, I was skeptical. Microsoft then invited me to take a peek at it back in 2019 and I was overwhelmed by what I saw. The sim has grown on me since its release, and it is taking space in my simming time that I wasn’t expecting it to take.
When Drew sent me that message, I wasn’t sure what to expect. And I was both shocked and skeptical until I watched the first few seconds. Firefighting? Hell yeah. Helicopters left, and right? All right, you got me.
Now deliver it, Microsoft, just like you did before.
I am excited about this announcement. Cautiously excited. More than I was with the original announcement of MSFS since Microsoft and Asobo proved what they can do. And no, everything’s not perfect but let’s take a step back and look at what they accomplished so far, with a brand-new sim, absolutely insane technology, and by listening to the community.
And yes, I believe they are listening. They may not be able to act upon the feedback they get as fast as we would like – or at all – but I know they are listening since I have been seeing a lot coming to the sim that I may have had a finger (or two) in as I have spoken to Microsoft in the past.
I’m glad things are progressing, and that Microsoft is looking at MSFS as a successful franchise. If they weren’t, a new version would probably not be signed off, but it was and that’s a good sign to me.
And that is actually the way I am looking at it: progress. We have no reasons to believe, at this time, that this new version isn't being built on top of the previous one, adding to it, rather than taking things out.
I am eager to check the new version out and see how much more we will get in the future.
Right now, MSFS 2024 is looking like an amazing new version for everyone, but especially for helicopter pilots.
