Microsoft Flight Simulator gets race mode, P-51s, other WWII planes

Microsoft Flight Simulator will receive an eight-player race mode this fall. Based on the Stihl National Championship air races, the new mode will allow virtual pilots to take control of WWII fighters capable of reaching speeds of up to 500 miles per hour. Microsoft and developer Asobo Studio announced the new mode on Tuesday during Gamescom 2021’s Xbox Stream.

Boss of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann told Polygon that the new module could go live as early as October. “It’s all done technically,” said Neumann, “so we’re playing a lot right now.”

The event that would become the Stihl National Championship began in 1964 and has been held almost every year since. Microsoft Flight Simulator will recreate its Unlimited series, where pilots fly legendary planes like the North American P-51 Mustang and the Hawker Sea Fury race along an eight-mile track. The perimeter is marked with brightly colored telephone poles, and planes often fly tip to tip, at full speed, a few hundred feet above the ground.

Neumann said the new racing mode requires Asobo Studio to completely overhaul how multiplayer works in-game. The stand-alone play mode is able to more accurately calculate and share one player’s position relative to the other. This is an improvement that will pay dividends for players as well as developers.

“If you and six friends want to try out some Blue Angel maneuvers or something, you can do it now just because we’ve updated the multiplayer code structure,” Neumann said. “It’s a big step for us. And it’s not in the platform, which means third-party developers can create their own air races, they can come up with other things that weren’t possible before.

The Air Race module will also include a newly revised map of the area around Reno, Nevada.

“To put it all together, as they say, we ‘flew over’ Reno,” said Neumann, “which means we sent a plane over Reno. We took new photos. We have our own height fields. It’s as clean, Reno, as it was three weeks ago; as clean as possible.

Image: Asobo Studio / Xbox Game Studios

Image: Asobo Studio / Xbox Game Studio

Neumann said that Microsoft Flight Simulator is contractually bound by its agreements with manufacturers like Airbus, Boeing and Textron not to show that their planes are damaged. It will be the same in the air race module. When players collide with each other or with the ground during a race, they simply disappear and the race continues without them.

Currently, the developers are still figuring out how to keep these races fair for online gamers.

“Do we want to eliminate both [players involved in the crash]? Or do we want to eliminate only the offender? Neumann said. “Honestly, that’s one of the reasons I didn’t give it a ship date.”

While October is the current focus, the new mode could potentially slide into November.

“November is the time when we launch Top Gun: MaverickNeumann said, referring to the highly anticipated ‘one-of-a-kind expansion’ which will debut alongside the film starring Tom Cruise. but with COVID you never know. “