From a bunch of almost unreadable pixels to one of the most beautiful video games ever seen on screen… Microsoft Flight Simulator , the famous aviation simulator born in 1982 is back! Eight years after the last version, a new version was released on August 18 on PC. An edition focused on the ultra-realism of piloting and which presents a particularity: the Earth has been entirely modeled with an unprecedented level of detail. And cocorico: it is Asobo, a French studio, which has achieved this feat.
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From software to video games in forty years
Among the first software designed by Microsoft, even before Windows, Flight Simulator was originally a very austere flight simulator. Over the years, with the evolution of computing and versions (that of 2020 is the 14th), the license has evolved into the more mainstream genre of video games. And the last iteration even gives in ultra-realism. To give you an idea of the richness of the game, the physical version includes 10 installation CDs for a total weight of 90 gigabytes! In fact, this requires having a recent desktop or "gaming" computer (less than three years old) and powerful enough to run it (as well as a very good Internet connection).
Microsoft Flight Simulator is therefore not accessible to everyone, but that does not prevent people from becoming passionate about it. Just watching videos of people flying in the simulator is mesmerizing, both in the visual beauty of the landscapes and in the precision of the piloting and the variations in the weather in real time.
Thorough work with pilots
The first point that strikes in Microsoft Flight Simulator is the ultra-realism of the simulation. Everything has been recreated in great detail by the developers to give the impression of being an airplane pilot. It starts with the thirty flyable planes in the game. From the small, super-manoeuvrable Cessnas to the much more rigid Boeing 747, everything has been reproduced on the outside on the cabin but especially on the inside down to the smallest button in the cockpit . Here, the flashing lights and the hundreds of buttons are not decorative elements, everything can be activated.
"The technical and creative directors spent a lot of time in a plane, piloting. We all took lessons. Personally, I paid attention to the sensations: the smells, the temperature, the thrusts, the vibrations, the noises…", explains Sébastian Wloch, head of the Bordeaux studio Asobo. "Once at the studio, we wondered how to transcribe it all in a computer simulation, how to ensure that the user does not just see a dial with numbers but really feels like flying. With a constraint that is that we only have the image and the sound, ”he adds. "We spent a lot of time with pilots to try to reproduce as well as possible the sensations they experience in flight. And then we worked with the manufacturers to make sure that our planes were as realistic as possible."
A technical but accessible simulator
Never had realism been pushed so far in the license. So much so that airline pilots can use this simulator to train between two flights. Indeed, it is possible to reproduce existing flights, even to anticipate its next release thanks to Microsoft's satellite data which allows the integration of real-time weather forecast, with short-term forecasts. In short, if you want to get a Paris-Tokyo in real conditions, with the checklist on the tarmac, take-off and the complete flight until landing, it is possible.
However: do not panic. Certainly, Microsoft Flight Simulator was designed primarily to satisfy aviation enthusiasts. But the developers obviously made sure that everyone was there. "We can make a simulator that is both extremely realistic and easy to approach," says Sébastian Wloch. "It's the most aided simulator ever. So you can turn on all the assists and there anyone can have hours of fun. We have an option to click anywhere on the planet, you start in the air, the plane is already flying and other than doing 'left, down, up, right' there is not much to do. "
Awesome graphics
The best argument to convince players fascinated by planes but who fear that the game is not for them, are the graphics. The developers of Asobo have modeled the entire surface of the globe. They relied on Bing Map, Microsoft's satellite mapping software, to make the base of the surface. Then they refined them with different digital techniques or even manually for some emblematic places by hand. A painstaking job ...
"On the Earth that we modeled, you have several hundred points of interest, for example the Eiffel Tower, for which we have done a job by hand, completing the data with photos. Ditto for the 30 to 40 airports highlighted in the game ", says Martial Bossard, co-founder of studio Asobo. "But, afterwards, the world is so big. We calculated: if we had to take so much care in every place on Earth, it would take us 14 years!" So everything is not always 100% identical of course, it is impossible. But the result is very impressive, especially for the rendering of clouds and lights.