I'd like to preface this by saying that I am a pilot myself, and while I don't know everything, I can speak to a few aspects of the simulator.

Firstly, there are many positive aspects to the sim. The world is recreated in amazing detail, the overall game is gorgeous, and while the airplane flight feel isn't as good as X-Plane, the aircraft are lovingly and even lavishly recreated. MSFS 2024 can legitimately be used as a training tool for a number of aircraft systems at this point.

Unfortunately, that is where my compliments must end. Despite being in the United States and using a 150 Mbps connection, the game constantly tells me my connection is too slow. I have traced the problem to MSFS`s content delivery network, which despite having had weeks to improve, is only pushing data to me at about 7 Mbps. That is the best that can be done with a VPN to several major server farms. Without the VPN, I'm lucky to get more than 4 Mbps. Loading and transitioning is agonizingly slow, prone to crashing, and often loads textures and models so blurred they would fit better into Flight Simulator 98 than anything modern. And yes, this often includes the cockpits! You can start a flight with a modern cockpit, look at some nicely rendered scenery in exterior view, and then return to cockpit view and time travel to 1998 graphics. There is no guarantee the rendering will fix itself, BTW.

And that extends to Career Mode as well, which can charitably called unfair. Sometimes you will get dinged for taxi-overspeeding for crawling along at 2 kts. A gust of wind causes your 172 to hit 86 kts, and immediately you get dinged for flap overspeed. The sim perpetually proposes nonsensical flight routes, and the ATC simulation sometimes croaks without allowing any of the inputs to continue dialog. The game teleports the taxi route you are following right before your eyes and then immediately spanks you for being outside of the expected taxi area. The game will happily arrange your fixed wing flights to include "runways" that would make a helicopter nervous. It will also occasionally spawn invisible walls, or trees in your taxi route, or cars fixed into the middle of runways. More than once it has even spawned my airplane UPSIDE DOWN, and then a second later told me that I crashed the airplane.

Here's a PRO-TIP: If the sim screws you like that, especially if you fly with basic insurance (because you know what you are doing) and don't want to suffer career-mode ending BS, DO NOT click Next when the sim tells you that YOU are the problem. Instead, CTRL-ALT-DEL and End Task the m'fer. It won't save the screw up if you're fast.

In conclusion, this sim is more likely to frustrate than to please most players. Die-hard simmers and pilots might put up with the BS for practical reasons, but there's no excuse for the sorry state of the sim almost 2 months after release. I find very few of these glitches to be things that would have slipped by even perfunctory beta testing, so I think it's safe to assume at this point that Asobo and MS will release a few more tweaks to appease the loudest voices and biggest bugs, and then leave everything as buggy as it is. They did the same thing in MSFS 2020.

As I'm almost at the end of my ATP pilot licensing, I think I can confidently say this will be the last MSFS installment I purchase. Hope this review was helpful to someone.

EDIT: @MightBeAnNPC pointed out that I accidentally said MBPS instead of Mbps. Corrected that. That typo unfortunately changes nothing in my review.

I would like to specifically point out that the Jan 9th patch that recently dropped was a complete joke and solved a minor issue very few people were having. The release notes for the January 9th update reveal that the Flight Sim team IS FOCUSED ON OPENING THE SIM MARKETPLACE over getting the game fixed. What a total joke - a sim as broken as this should prioritize ACTUALLY WORKING over any Marketplace BS! As if the launch wasn't bad enough, that reveals a complete focus on squeezing Flightsim players for money instead of delivering anything resembling a finished or quality product.


EDIT: As of February 17th and stretching to today, February 19th, career mode no longer works AT ALL, with an error pop-up stating that the career mode server is not operational. At this point, I can't even put into words the magnitude of failure that MSFS 2024 has managed to achieve.


If you purchase this game at this point, all I can say is that you have been warned.

Cloud streaming all game assets should be a crime against humanity.

Typical scenario as I go to play the game:
- Wait for game to load. (5 minutes)
- Finally at main menu.
- Click "Career Mode" and wait for it to load. (5 minutes)
- Check out if there's new certifications or specializations to unlock.
- Click into one and wait for it to load. (5 minutes)
- Look at mission briefing, read EFB. Click "Fly Now". Wait for game to load (10 minutes).
- While waiting, get "LOW BANDWIDTH WARNING". Open web browser, do speed test and see I'm pulling 250 Mbps down.
- Game finally loads. Tons of assets missing. Half airplanes litter the tarmac. Looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
- Do flight and complete mission (maybe 10 minutes total).

10 minutes of flying for 25 minutes of load time. Just unreasonably ridiculous. Sure, they will fix it someday. We don't review games based on "someday" features. We review them as they are now.

As of today, stay away. Go find an Early Access title. At least the devs there are actually trying.

EDIT: This says I have "20.1 hours played" at review time. The flight logs inside MSFS say I've flown for 3 hours and 46 minutes. There is SO. MUCH. WAITING.

EDIT v2 (2024.11.23): A lot of comments (rightly) question what my machine's specs are:

CPU: AMD 5950X
GPU: MSI RTX 3080 (10GB)
RAM: 96GB
HD:
- Boot: 2TB NVME (forget exact brand... uh, Crucial?) with MSFS 2024 installed on this.
- Additional: 4TB Samsung 870 Evo SSD (most other Steam games are installed here)

EDIT (2024.12.12) - Patch 1.2.7.0 release
Downloaded the patch yesterday through Steam and then opened up MSFS. Still took awhile to boot up and get into a flight. I figured that was likely due to the app itself downloading some content in the background.

Fine, let's try it today! Everything the patch needed to touch should have downloaded in the background, yeah? Stop watch: Go!

No joke: 8 minutes stuck on the loading screen at 6%. Maybe something screwed up. Force quit everything.

Second try: Another 8 minutes go by. Still stuck at 6%. This is dumb. Reboot computer.

Third try: We got past 6%! Slowly. Slooooowly. Finally! At the main menu: 3 minutes, 45 seconds to load.

Quick sanity check for internet speed: 240 Mbps down, 200 Mbps up.

For all the randos saying it's my internet speed. No. I have zero issues streaming games via GFN's 4K plan. (Funny, considering my initial "cloud streaming all game assets should be a crime against humanity" comment -- maybe I should stream MSFS 2024 via GFN). If I fly to a new area in MSFS 2020, I don't have the same streaming issues. It's specific to this game.

Pros: Graphics look better! No weird noise visible (I guess that was related to some previous DLSS issues). Also, once the game actually loads, booting into a flight is pretty quick!

Cons: Still seeing partial aircraft on the tarmac that are missing gears, livery, or looking like they're straight out of a PS1 game. The patch also overwrote a bunch of custom settings for my flight stick. SIGH.

As of today, I still don't recommend it. But I paid $$$ for it, so on I play...

100+ hours playing this simulator and it has tested my patience to the breaking point.

Firstly, Free Flight mode works fine and most 3rd party aircraft work without incident. If that's your bread and butter, by all means have fun.

If you are wanting to play Career mode, don't buy this game until this feature has been fixed. My attraction to this version of Microsoft Flight Simulator was mostly for Career mode; an awesome feature that we haven't seen in a Simulator yet, putting aside using a 3rd Party plugins as a substitute.

This feature is plagued with bugs which will not only frustrate the hell out of you, but bring you seldom satisfaction when it actually works. Some of these are:
1) Aircraft weight and balance doesn't work when adjusted from the UI. A keybind must be used to adjust fuel load. Also, the aircraft are never fueled enough for the trip being flown
2) Mission objectives can misdirect you to land on the wrong runway. Hold Short locations are also oddly placed and impact immersion
3) The game penalizes you for actions you did correctly or didn't do at all. For example, stopping at Hold Shorts and asking for Taxi clearance will sometimes penalize you for moving when you are completely stopped
4) Aircraft spawn locations at the start of missions can be in odd places, making it risky to taxi without "Crashing" the aircraft. I have had my aircraft spawn in a building or against a tree many times. Skipping to Taxi can get around this
5) Some small airports and landing strips are misrepresented with paved runways when they should be grass/dirt. If you fly in Australia like me, you will notice most dirt strips are paved. This can also penalize you as the runways are the width of a taxiway and ping you for have a wheel off the runway or even a runway excursion
6) Passive Income is random or non-exsistent. Even after flying missions, some days you will get $0 income. I have 5 companies; each with their own aircraft with Crew toggled ON. I've so far gone 3 days without any passive income, but got charged for Insurance per flight hour.
7) Aircraft Insurance doesn't pay out, completely useless at this time.
8) Real weather and turbulence affects on the aircraft are exaggerated. Even with small winds of 2-5kts, the aircraft can seesaw on its yaw axis the entire flight.
9) Some Aircraft like the TBM 930 are completely broken and cannot be used. Others have some exaggerated behaviors such as tipping over a low speeds and yawing/dutch roll moments.
10) The icing on the cake is progression. Long-haul flights are especially risky to attempt in Career Mode as the game will hit you with Unexpected Errors at anytime during the flight, ripping you of any progress made. The last straw for me was my second attempt of a 4hr long Cargo flight that resulted in my aircraft "Crashing" at the end of the flight on the taxiway due to a pit in the terrain that wasn't visible. This not only wasted 4hrs of my time, but also destroyed my aircraft which insurance did not pay out on.

As pretty as this Simulator is, my main buying point was Career Mode as it gave me more purpose for flying. Until this feature is fixed, my only other options is to go back to MSFS2020 and use OnAir or FSE for this feature. I have been burned too many times and I'm not investing anymore time into this feature until it is stable.

I honestly wanted to give this game the benefit of the doubt and try to have fun with the feature I was looking forward to. It's a great disappointment that this game was released in such a state. I have hopes that Asobo/Microsoft will fix these problems and make this into a great experience. But, we will have to wait until then.

Dear Microsoft,
I was told the reason you made MSFS 2024 more cloud based was because some of your customers complained it took up a large amount of hard drive space. I'm writing to inform you that if I bought an RTX4090, a Thrustmaster joystick throttle and foot peddles, a valve index for VR, and the top tier version of MSFS 2024, I'm very likely not put off by the concept of buying an additional $50 SSD drive for my PC to store your game on it. What I am put off is playing MSFS 2024 for three hours and only getting to fly for one of those because of loading screens. Please allow us to download more of the game assets to local our local drive to save loading times and give up on this "all in the cloud" idea.

Sincerely,
Every Serious Sim Enthusiasts

If the developers had dedicated as much time to the career mode and bugfixing as the marketing team did to composing five different editions, we would have a pretty good simulator.

As a seasoned flight sim veteran with thousands of hours across multiple sims, starting in FSX which came out in 2006, and then spanning to X-Plane 11 and DCS, I have seen the highs and lows of all of these sims. The problem is, FS 2024 has taken a massive step backwards. I had very high hopes for this sim, and I was very suprised that they even were releasing a new one at all in only 4 years. Here are some of my major complaints:

1. One of the fundamantals of a flight sim is the physics engine obviously, so lets talk about the wind. The handling during crosswind landing is completely and utterly broken. I was noticing that I was crabbing into the wind a lot more than usual, so I checked the metar and weather settings in the game, 8 knots. I came in for landing and my plane is being tossed around, and my plane is landing sideways, LITERALLY perpendicular to the runway. The aircraft's attitude is laughable, and was a dealbreaker for me.

2. this kind of goes with the last point, but next I wanna talk about the rudder control, it's kinda off. On the ground, the rudders often oversteer to the point of being uncontrollable, especially noticably during takeoff, where minor input sends the aircraft veering off the runway, which is extremely frustrating. This already makes the flight seem like a chore after it just started

3. there are COUNTLESS visual bugs and glitches. Yes, the graphics look beautiful at first glance, but the cracks will start to show. I've encountered countless visual glitches and textures flickering and lighting issues that make night flying unbearable. The game is riddled with bugs that make it feel like an early access release rather than a finished product.

4. I will cover this briefly because it doesn't need much explanation, the ATC and AI voices are actually awful. They sound robotic and incredibly outdated, the immersion factor is completely shattered when I hear these lifeless voices giving commands that are just phrased and awkward.

5. The AI traffic is just as bad as the ATC, if not worse. The planes clip through each other and occasionally the player's aircraft, and they also lack any real sense of realism. They seem to lack proper separation and don't follow realistic flight patterns and taxi instructions, this makes the airfields and busy airspaces feel terrible.

6. Argueably the biggest issue of them all though, is that this game is simply unfinished. There are constant performance issues, crashed, and the overall polish just isn't there. Given this franchise's amazing history, releasing some of the best sims of all time and creating so many memories for me and many other, this was a huge let down and I expected so much more out of it. It feels like they tried to rush this project out the door to meet a deadline rather than one that was carefully tested and refined like the last simulators in the genre.

At the end of the day, the simulator has potential but right now it's more of a frustrating mes than an enjoyable flight simulator. It's dissapointing to see a sim with so much potential and history fall flat on its face in so many areas. Unless the developers address these issues and fix them, I wont be sticking around. I'm not hoping on this games downfall, or the devs, I really hope they improve it, but I can't recommend it to anybody who's looking for a truly realistic and immersive flight simulator.

Pro:

1. It says '2024' – so now you can flex on those peasants still stuck on 2020. Progress, right?

Cons:

1. Not a new sim: It’s basically MSFS 2020 after a spa day – same but with slightly better posture (handling) and a new outfit (visuals).

2. Weather wizardry: Apparently, Asobo and Meteoblue are working together to ensure you always have unrealistic, immersion-breaking weather. Want realism? Buy a window instead and stare out of it.

3. Aircraft Meh-chanics: Default planes are like showroom models – look great but handle like shopping carts. Encryption ensures third-party devs can’t fix them, so good luck flying anything but your dreams.

4. Cloud-powered CHAOS: Streamed textures, assets, maybe even the handling model means Earth looks like an impressionist’s fever dream while your aircraft looks like it was made out of mashed potatoes and watercolours.

5. Control binding adventure: Want to reconfigure your joystick? Prepare for a mini-game where overlapping controls battle it out. Spoiler: You lose.

6. Console-first UI: The new interface screams, 'You're holding a controller, right?' For PC users, it’s like trying to pilot a 747 with an Etch-a-Sketch.

7. Career mode spawn roulette: Ready to kick off your aviation career? Plot twist: Your plane spawns upside down on top of a hangar or clips into a terminal building. But don’t worry, the game’s got your back—you’ll still get penalised for its mistake! Check ride? More like check out before you even leave the gate as it aims for the skies... literally.

8. Silent skies: Aircraft sounds are optional, apparently. Sometimes it’s dead quiet, like a post-apocalyptic flying experience. I suppose this could be a pro, too, since it would go well with the impressionist Earth and watercoloured aircraft textures.

9. Career bugs galore: Even the devs play-tested the first aircraft and noped out. Switch planes and you’ll find more bugs than in a jungle canopy.

10. Outdated satellite imagery: The world beneath you is so outdated in places, it could moonlight as a vintage map collection. Bing Maps might have fresh data, but Asobo seems to have gone for the “it’s good enough” approach—flying through history, quite literally. After all, the community wanted historical weather, right? Instead, we got a historical map.

11. AI Traffic failures: Real-world airline traffic spawns like budget Halloween costumes – half done and missing detail.

12. Ground vehicle vanishing act: Want just the immersive ground traffic? Sorry, this sim just Thanos-snapped that feature out of existence.

13. Blinding Bloom: The cockpit bloom at night is so intense it’s like staring into a nuclear reactor. Want to adjust or turn it off? Too bad! Asobo says, “What are settings?” You’ll need to wear aviators at night just to protect your retinas and maintain any semblance of night vision. Hope you like flying blind.

14. Control Feedback Mysteries: Want to check your joystick’s input curves in real-time? Nah. Asobo replaced that with the exciting new "Trial and Error" simulator.

15. Cookware Ready: While you wait for the sim to load from the cloud, your GPU will double as a frying pan. At least you’ll have snacks.

16. Camera controls: The “Neck Cramp” Edition: Want to set up close-up camera views for all your flight deck systems? Nope, you’re limited to just 9 views, and you’ll be grateful for them. Moving forward or backward to adjust your viewpoint? Enjoy the bonus feature: the camera also tilts up and down. Guess your neck muscles aren't as strong as you thought they were. And God forbid you aren't in straight and level flight, it gets even worse then. But don’t worry, you’ll get plenty of practice on that spontaneous head-banging routine, courtesy of MSFS 2024.

---

Now, about that flex on the 2020 users?
Surprise! They’re already cruising at 30,000 feet in their bug-free, custom-tuned aircraft, surrounded by real AI traffic at fully operational airports. Meanwhile, you're still grounded, stuck in an upside-down plane half inside a terminal hangar, squinting through the nuclear bloom lighting, desperately Googling “fix for MSFS 2024 mashed potato textures,” all while your GPU simulates an impromptu cooking class. But hey, your fancy avatar standing on the tarmac, looking perplexed at you, must really justify that $70 asking price, right?

---

These are the thoughts that came to mind based on my brief encounter with this product. Want to dive deeper? Google, Reddit, and AVSIM are your next stops—if you’re in the mood for endless discussions, troubleshooting tips, and enough opinions to make you question all of reality.

This game is in REALLY bad shape. Aside from the horrible launch, the actual gameplay is bad. For context, I'm an actual pilot. I fly a C172.
- Career mode teaches horrible habits. When exiting a runway, you're instructed to hold short of the holdshort bars. Those are for entering the runway, not exiting. You need to exit and clear the hold short bars, unlike what the sim instructs you to do.
- ATIS is completely wrong. This has been an issue since the beta version of MSFS2020, and they've never fixed it. But hey, at least they have animals now?!?
- The voice acting is the worst I've ever heard. It's worse than speech to text from 25 years ago- they managed to make it sound worse than MSFS 98 (the one I fell in love with).
- The flight physics are awful. They make a 3 knot crosswind feel more like a 30-40 knot crosswind in a C172.
- The visuals are EXACTLY the same as the original MSFS 2020 before they "optimized" the cloud textures for Xbox.
- Most grass runways are now missing any textures to differentiate the runway from the surrounding grass.
- Even when servers are running correctly, load times are still ~15 minutes.

I could go on for a long time, but the fact is this game is nowhere near ready for launch. They took a step back from MSFS 2020 in every meaningful way, and that game STILL was full of bugs that they refused to fix. I've lost faith that Asobo will ever be able to fix this.

=== after SU1 update ===
The sim decided to uninstall itself and delete everything in the community folder along side with every hardware setting, camera views, etc. Only microsoft can self destruct like this.

=== 90 hours update, ===
I can no longer spawn at any airport with any plane, horrible

4 hours I've only tried career so far

The new UI is abysmal.
The controls are even worse.
The new efb is amazingly useless
The missions are full and I mean full of bugs and penalties that don't exist.

First impression, it's completely untested.

Do not buy, yet.

If you are going to force everyone to stream all of the data then at least ensure you can handle the load. This is Microsoft of all people too. What are you even doing over there? Apart from this there are many really inexcusable bugs in the game (planes load in with no sound, missions are broken, landmarks that you want me to photograph don't load in). You didn't even make sure the first handful of career missions functioned properly which is very telling of the overall quality. I'm sure in 6 months most of these issues will be fixed and the game will be in a much better place but, again, this is Microsoft so I'm not sure why you aren't already on top of this.