‘Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024’ Fails To Take Off As Launch Day Issues Continue To Prevent Players From Accessing Game
Thanks to the unforeseen flight condition of ‘too many people wanting to play the game’, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has experienced an absolutely turbulent launch cycle.
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Released on November 19th for the Xbox Series X|S and PC platforms, this latest entry in Microsoft’s 42-year old gaming portfolio staple was highly anticipated by fans – more so than even developer Asobo Studio had expected.
As a result, when players tried to either download or play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, they were instead were either met with loading and install times measured in hours or, in many cases, outright rejected from accessing the game’s servers at all.
To add insult to injury, the game’s long install time counts towards Steam’s two-hour refund window, leaving any player who attempted to refund their purchase on the basis of being unable to actually play it were left out to dry.
As a result of these issues, the game has since received over 2,000 negative reviews on Steam, leaving it with an ‘Overwhelmingly Negative’ rating.
One of the frustrated players, Scarla8888, perfectly described the situation many were experiencing, writing “Stuck at 97% on the loading screen for 65 minutes. Gave up and will try another day. One of the biggest companies on the planet and they cannot get their servers right for launch day.”
“Woah, so where do I start,” began another Steam user, Domi, of their review. “Right now, I don’t recommend buying this game, it’s launch was a total failure, something you wouldn’t expect from something that big like Microsoft is. I have 6 hours on this simulator and I can say I’ve been in the simulator itself for exactly 25 minutes before I thought I would restart it and I’ve never got in again. I always thought GTA V Multiplayer was the Loading Simulator, but MSFS 2024 assured me of anything else.”
Initially concluding their thoughts with the warning, “Right now, DO NOT BUY,” Domi would later edit their post to add, “Woah, so Microsoft fixed loading, but now the simulator is unplayable. Game crashes every 10 minutes even if you ain’t doing anything. GREAT JOB MICROSOFT.”
Leaving their “first negative review ever,” user mariusuncool asserted, “The game is straight up not playable at all.”
“After looking at loading screens and login queues for hours over the span of three days, I haven’t been able to play the actual game after all,” they explained. “Usually, I’m not too harsh about issues and bugs on launch, but this is different. Not being able to even launch an 80€ premium product after three days of trying over and over again is just unacceptable.”
Following this, developers issued an apology saying that they didn’t expect that big player interest.
In the mist of this backlash, the game’s development team offered a public apology for the issues, with game director Jorg Neumann admitting, “We knew the excitement was high for Microsoft Simulator 2024 but, frankly, we completely underestimated how high, and unfortunately, it really has overwhelmed our infrastructure.”
To this end, on November 20th, the devs announced via the game’s official Twitter account that “We have increased our server capacity and are seeing more players accessing the sim, however, we are still seeing access issues continue.”
“This is not the launch experience we want for our players and want to apologize to the community,” they added. “We will continue to work around the clock with our partners and will provide updates until the issues are resolved.”
In a follow-up tweet on November 21st signed by Heumann himself, the game director further informed players, “Update on the technical issues affecting MSFS 2024: We continue to see access and bandwidth issues as more users come online globally. We’re actively working on increased capacity fixes. We want to express our gratitude to the community and apologize for this frustrating experience. We’ll share ongoing updates across our channels.”
Be that as it may, it remains to be seen how Microsoft and Asobo Studio regain player trust after such a dismal launch.
The path forward requires a massive feat to resolve technical issues, so hopefully they stayed committed to delivering a problem-free experience for every one of game’s fans.
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