MSFS 2024 – 4 months later

Microsoft Flight Simulator came out back in November 2024 in what we can’t really call a smooth release. Some of the features seemed interesting enough and the community got excited. But what’s to say about it 4 months later?

Back in November, only a few days after its release, I talked about my first impressions – and let you know I wasn’t pleased.

Four months have passed, and a Sim Update was released. What has changed, if anything?

Issues from the past

One of my first complaints had to do with the fact that helicopters had some issues with flight dynamics, especially on elevated landing areas, such as the helipad we can find on the lighthouse landing challenge.

There were a few issues that haunted helicopters in general and this one, where the helicopter was tossed out of the helipad, was very big.

This seems to be fixed, and helicopters have better flight dynamics, so that is something that I was very pleased to see and happy about. Landing a helicopter on an elevated platform is now smoother.

The loading times also improved drastically with the dreaded 9%-17% very slow load going away. So, that’s another major win as well. Getting into the sim quickly for some world photography – which is still one of my favorite activities – or just flying around interesting areas for a few minutes is no longer out of reach.

That is quite the quality-of-life change for me since it no longer prevents me from doing my quick sessions.

Career mode

I sighed when I started writing this paragraph. I’m not even kidding.

Missions were something that I had been looking forward to for a long time as they would provide us with something cool and fun to do. I just wasn’t expecting them to be implemented the way they were, gatekept behind a grindy, limited (and buggy) career mode that made the whole experience – at least for me – quite unpleasant.

I am not going to beat the poor dead horse again, as I have voiced my opinion on this matter before (directly to Asobo and on record both on video and in writing). However, I was very frustrated to see the path that we had to take to be able to fly helicopter missions. Career mode requires extensive fixed-wing missions before helicopter scenarios unlock, makes it frustrating for dedicated rotorcraft pilots.

Fortunately, it seems Microsoft and Asobo are thinking about unlocking missions and separating them from career mode. A much-needed step in the right direction in my opinion – and something that should have been there from the start.

The good things

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 does have good things. We tend to focus on the bad things, and I started exactly there, but I can’t say MSFS 2024 is a bad title.

There are improvements on multiple levels, such as terrain and flight dynamics, for example. We have more aircraft – a lot more helicopters out of the box (depending on the version you purchase) and the team is still responsive and improving the product.

The marketplace is finally here, which helps a lot. New modes are great to have, with the revamped challenges and my favorite one so far: World Photographer.

We can still free-flight our behinds off and enjoy the sim the same way we did in MSFS 2020 with some added features and graphical improvements.

Not everything is perfect, but we can’t really say it’s all bad.

The game is broken (is it)?

This is something that we see people saying quite often on social media. People complain that MSFS 2024 is broken for this or that reason.

We have to give the developers credit where credit is due and be fair to them.

The last time I heard about official numbers, MSFS was being used by over 15 million players. Let’s split that in half, just for the sake of it, and say MSFS 2024 has 7,5 million users.

How many folks do you see complaining about it being “broken”? Can any of us say that we have seen 1.000 different individuals complaining? 500? 250? Let’s say it was 1.000 (1,000 for our US friends – commas matter).

One thousand complaints in a universe of 7,5 million. 7.499.000 doesn’t seem to say the same.

Let’s be fair and honest here. I know it’s frustrating to have a broken installation, weird bugs, or hardware incompatibilities, but I don’t think it’s a fair bet to say that MSFS 2024, in general, is a non-working piece of software.

I’m not saying these complaints are to be discarded or ignored, mind you. They should be taken seriously. I am only mentioning these numbers, not to diminish the importance of the issues but to show that the software is not working poorly in general.

All right, but it has some bugs

Definitely. Just like MSFS2020 did when it was released. It’s no justification but it is what it is. I try to live with it. I embrace the good and learn to live with the bad.

I have both MSFS2020 and MSFS2024 and I can honestly say that, except for the first few weeks where the sim didn’t even load in a decent amount of time, I use MSFS2024 and don’t need to go back to MSFS2020.

I have never felt the need to get out of MSFS2024 and boot up MSFS2020 because of any of the issues or bugs.

From the third-party developers’ angle

One of the things that I have noticed, though, is that third-party developers are still struggling to get information, pass their issues, or contact the development team in general.

I have been in touch with developers and reached out to a few of them for this article and this seems to be unanimous. Microsoft and Asobo do have a good relationship with some developers – mostly the ones that they have formed partnerships with – but not as a general rule.

One of these developers even told me that the official development forums are more of a self-help platform than a place where they can get their questions answered officially.

I still believe Microsoft should have the figure of a developer liaison (or several of them) to smoothen communication and make it easier for everyone. The more third-party developers know and can do, the more MSFS has to offer as well.

This communication gap results in delayed releases of anticipated aircraft and scenery add-ons.

To make things worse, changes in MSFS2024 development are far and wide, and quite a few third-party developers are having a very hard time.

I understand breaking changes are sometimes needed for a product to evolve but the aforementioned lack of communication hurts progress on new products for the platform.

Is MSFS2024 Worth It for Helicopter Pilots?

I’ll make this one quick: Yes.

Does it bring anything that makes it super worth it when comparing to MSFS2020? Not really. Unless you go through career mode, which you may choose to do so and enjoy it.

I am not saying career mode is completely useless to everyone. It is to me. And you should always remember that when reading articles – be it mine or someone else’s. This is our opinion after all.

So, what’s my conclusion? Should you upgrade to MSFS2024?

I am often asked if I recommend MSFS2024 or if someone who has MSFS2020 should stick with it.

I don’t find this question to be easy. I can’t answer in a binary, one-or-zero, black-or-white way.

I am enjoying MSFS2024. I think it’s a good sim. Yes, I am frustrated – and perhaps a bit angry – by the way career mode works. I think Microsoft and Asobo should have included community members when making these decisions and I would like them to do so for future features or versions.

We don’t need MSFS to be “developed by committee” but Microsoft should listen to experienced simmers and, at least, get their feedback and thoughts, before writing the design documents and assigning developers to write their code.

Considering MSFS2024 is the newer version, that it will have a longer support lifetime, that it has great new features, and that it’s possible to do the same in 2024 that we did in 2020 (for the most part), I usually tell people to go with 2024.

For those that have MSFS2020, if they are happy with it and they don’t care about career mode or world photographer, for example, I tell them not to feel any FOMO.

Yes, MSFS2024 does have some new features. But, again, you can still do some free flying as you always did with MSFS2020. So, unless MSFS2024 does have something you can’t get from MSFS2020 (like a specific aircraft) or if you really want to get yourself into career mode, MSFS2024 is not a mandatory update.

If you are someone new, and getting into the hobby, then yes, I do recommend MSFS2024. For me, at least, with the exception of the first few weeks, it has been a solid experience.

While not strictly mandatory for everyone, I tend to lean towards recommending an upgrade, especially considering the improvements, better scenery, and ongoing support from Microsoft and Asobo.

Even if career mode is not for us (yet?) and we can’t fly those missions independently, there are some technology improvements, better scenery and a stronger, continued support from Microsoft and Asobo. It is the latest iteration of the product after all.

Support HeliSimmer.com and browse ad-free! Learn More About Sérgio Costa

Sérgio has been a flight simulation enthusiast for nearly 25 years. His passion with helicopters developed during MSFS 2000 when he discovered the complexity of these aircraft and the challenge it was to control them.

Since then he has been primarily a helicopter flight simmer, trying his best not to crash and kill all his virtual passengers.

Sérgio is HeliSimmer.com's editor and writer and one of the Three Grumpy Simmers, a YouTube series and Podcast produced together with YouTubers Bel Geode and NovaWing24, obviously dedicated to flight simulation.