Released on November 19, 2024, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 evidently failed to anticipate the level of excitement it would generate among players. This led to overwhelmed servers and an inability for many players to start the game due to its heavy reliance on cloud services. Following four years of anticipation, players responded with immediate frustration, posting negative comments on social media and initiating review bombing on Metacritic and Steam. The urgency of the situation compelled Asobo Studio and Microsoft to convene an emergency team meeting on Teams. During this meeting, it was revealed that Microsoft had underestimated the game’s popularity and did not deploy enough servers to handle the demand. According to recent updates, they planned for servers capable of supporting 200,000 simultaneous players at launch, which is inadequate given that 15 million people purchased the 2020 version of Microsoft Flight Simulator. This significant oversight will likely take several weeks to address and restore a more stable operational environment.
We encountered an issue with the service managing new features in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, including career mode and other missions. The server handling data requests was overloaded, leading to slowdowns and other problems. Players experienced long loading times and missing content, such as certain aircraft not being available. We have resolved these issues and can now allow players to enter the game at a steady pace.
Among the issues listed on discussion forums, the primary concern is the inability to exit the loading page, with some users waiting over 40 minutes to access the game. Those fortunate enough to pass the main screen encountered missing textures, unfinished 3D models, and frequent crashes. Best of luck to Asobo’s teams in the coming days; it is expected to be a challenging period.
