Microsoft Flight Simulator goes competitive multiplayer this fall • Eurogamer.net

There’s a lot going on in developer Adobo’s terrific Microsoft Flight Simulator by the end of the year, starting with the September makeovers for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. However, this is only the beginning, with the developer having now confirmed two new planes, as well as a competitive multiplayer mode arriving this fall.

Global Update 6, as we already knew, arrives on September 7 and aims to significantly improve the rendering of Flight Simulator of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Along with the visual improvements, it will feature around 100 famous handcrafted monuments, four new airports – Lübeck, Stuttgart, Klagenfurt and St. Gallen – as well as new discovery flights, landing challenges, bush excursions, and more.

This “and more” was developed at tonight’s Xbox Gamescom Showcase and takes the form of a new flyable plane: the Junkers JU-52. This 1930s German aircraft arrives as part of a new series of paid DLC that Asobo is calling Local Legends, bringing new aircraft that are well known to the local area with every Global Update, but which may be less well known. of the global audience. The Junkers JU-52 arrives on September 7 and will cost US $ 14.99.

But that’s not all for new planes, and November brings a more forward-looking aircraft to Flight Simulator: the VoloCity, described as an eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) air taxi for urban travel. This addition, which is part of Asobo’s work with companies “shaping the future of aviation”, would be the “first step” towards the introduction of helicopters.

Perhaps most unexpectedly, however, is the imminent arrival of competitive multiplayer in the game. This will be added in the announced new Reno Air Races expansion, which sees Asobo teaming up with the Reno Air Racing Association to bring air racing to the world. STIHL National Championship – “the world’s fastest motorsport” – at Flight Simulator.

Asobo calls it the game’s “first major expansion” and it will bring, as Flight Simulator Director Jorg Neumann said at Gamescom tonight’s showcase, “all the famous racing planes in the world.” It will feature planes capable of flying up to 500 mph at altitudes between 50 and 250 feet above the ground, and allow friends and strangers to run around the world together.

It’s unclear if this (or even November’s VoloCity) will be paid additions, but hopefully Asobo and Microsoft have more to share soon.