Impressions after about 40 hours. Mostly career mode. Playing on XBOX SERIES X.
The Good
Much better frame rates than 2020. Feels like a solid 60 FPS at almost all times. It even stays at a solid 60 when using chase cam and panning the camera 360 degrees. If you did that on 2020, on XBOX X, your frames would drop to literally 5-10 FPS.
The new electronic flight bag tablet (EFB), that you can access in every plane, has replaced the default map from 2020 while flying. The map in 2020 had a ton of lag. Plus if you had it open while flying, your game would drop to under 15 FPS in some cases. Not only is this new map way better and more detailed, but there’s no lag and absolutely little to no frame drops when using it while flying.
There’s now a built in Flight Recorder, even for XBOX X. You can now start recording your flights with literally 3 clicks and rewatch all your landings from cinematic angles.
There’s now a photo mode. I haven’t looked at it much, but it looks pretty in depth.
You can get out of your plane, when on land, wherever you want in the world and walk around. And the textures on the ground are actually pretty good in most places.
The cloud layers are absolutely breath taking and one of the biggest improvements from 2020. There is now true IFR only conditions where you will not be able to see anything around you. If you don’t know how to fly with your instruments, you have zero chance of making it out.
The trees are a thing to behold. Trees are now appropriately sized and spaced, as well as placed in their proper climates. It really breathes life into the sim. Trees were definitely lacking in 2020.
Water is a huge step up from 2020. Though water looked pretty decent in 2020, it doesn’t compare to 2024. The reflections are out of this world, some the best, if not the best I’ve seen in a video game (check post above for proof ). Water physics are also very good when landing and taking off in water, much better than 2020.
Plane physics in general are way better than 2020. Even small planes like the Cessna 172 Skyhawk take some time to stop after landing. Where in 2020 you could stop most planes way too quickly. Turbulence is also way more evident when flying through bad weather in 2024.
The effects the airplanes cause on the ground are much improved from 2020. Tires leave marks on the runway when hitting the brakes too hard or making a really sharp turn. Exhaust smoke spills out of the back of your turbo jet engines, as you line up on a snowy runway with a Boeing 737. Wind and dirt swirls around, as you lift of the grass landing pad in your helicopter. All these things were not in the base game in 2022 (may have been available in mods).
When flying in “Free Fly”, AI controlled airliners have real liveries on them, from real world companies.
Some base airliners made by Asobo, not third party, come with real company liveries for free.
Your reputation can go down in career mode. So if you have a B reputation, and you start to consistently get C grades on your missions, your reputation will drop to a C. This will effect what jobs are available to you. Don’t ask me how I found this out.
Your available mission area increases as your XP LVL increases, as well as when you do more flights in that specific area. I started my journey in central MD. I’ve now expanded that area north into New York and south into Virginia. This works the same in every new area you unlock throughout your career.
Career is a grind in a good way. You’re constantly unlocking lots of new things as you go. I’ve probably played close to 35 hours of career so far and feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. I only have about half of the available jobs unlocked thus far. I also just now opened the opportunity to start my own company and buy my own planes.
You have to maintain and buy your own planes if you start your own company. The planes will also disappear from your fleet if you crash them, and you will have to buy a brand new plane.
Credits/Money in career feels perfect so far. I don’t feel like I’m getting money too fast at all and the prices for things actually make sense to me. So far, most jobs have payed between $700-$2500. These numbers will go way up once I start my own company. Planes also seemed to be priced somewhat realistically. You can buy new and used aircraft’s ranging from $185,000 to $99mil (Boeing 737).
There are leaderboards for online challenges, as well as landing challenges. I haven’t explored them much but it looks like a lot more competitive based gameplay than 2020 had.
The Bad
Day 1 there were very long queue times and loading times. Since day 1, not only has there been no queue at all, but all load times seem much quicker.
Some planes, especially third party ones, have poor textures and some bugs. This is to be expected though and I am positive the devs of these planes will fix these problems in no time.
Marketplace is not available yet. I’d bet it will be available by the end of the month, but can’t you say for sure.
Everything is being streamed in. So if your internet is struggling, or you’re just not getting a good connection to the server, you may see some poor textures (especially scenery).
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