Microsoft Flight Simulator Takes Off With French Studio in Cockpit

Many aircraft are still grounded due to the coronavirus pandemic, but would-be and real pilots took to the virtual skies on Aug. 18 with the first update in years of Microsoft's venerable Flight Simulator game.

The bestselling title dates all the way back to 1982 — when home computers had less processing power than a graphics card today — and Microsoft tasked French developers Asobo Studio with giving it the biggest overhaul since 2006.

Two of Asobo's co-founders even took flying lessons over the past four years to inject real-world experience into their design efforts, and the firm enjoyed access to Microsoft's Bing satellite mapping and cloud-powered processing.

"The lessons were essential (to introduce) something sensory to the game," one of them, Martial Bossard, told AFP.