Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 - PlayStation 5 - Review

We reviewed Microsoft Flight Simulator when it came to Xbox back in 2020 and found it to be a pretty amazing game. While we never reviewed Flight Sim 24 when it launched last year, with the PlayStation 5 version taking to the skies, we figured now was the time to do that and thankfully Xbox provided us a code. Was this a code share flight worth boarding, or are there just too many issues in taking off?

Now while I studied aeronautics in school, which helped fuel a passion for planes, I have never had the desire to actually fly them myself. So as you might imagine I spent time doing the flight tutorials and getting to grips with the basics of flight and the controls. Something that I did spend a bit of time with were the assists, I did have everything enabled at the start and as I got more experience, I started to turn things off, just to see how I was going with all of that. Tutorials done, it was time to take off with the career mode and it was quite fun. While earlier games in the series may have been just about flying, this new release adds in other flight related jobs like firefighting, crop dusting and so on. I liked these additions as it changed up the task, but not the overall mechanics that much, think of it like trying chocolate and something extra. Outside of the career, the most mode I spent time in was the photo mode, which as you might expect tasks you with taking photos. The game also offers a challenge mode, for those who want to test themselves, I had a go at a few, but I was clearly not skilled enough to achieve their target goals.

As this was the PlayStation 5 version that I was playing, I did pay attention to the extra options that the PlayStation 5 console and controller has, to see what was going on there. The first thing I noticed was the triggers and how pulling them in felt different depending on what I was doing. When taxing to a runway, the triggers are the main way of controlling the turns of the plane and having them fight back against you, as the wind was blowing hard was a nice touch. In the skies that was a fun change up, as there was often a little less resistance, due to the lack of wind pressure when soaring up high. The controller also offered up a fun use of the speaker, with the voices of the various air traffic controllers coming through it. What I really liked though was the lightbar illuminating red when I was stalling out or doing something I shouldn’t, it was a quick visual indicator I was failing.

The biggest issue for me in playing the game is just how much I spent on loading screens, as the game was streaming almost everything. Now I know the 2020 release was large, upwards of 120gb so when the PlayStation 5 version began downloading, I made sure to clear the space. Turns out the console only wanted 8gb for storage, as it streams the rest of the game. This meant that due to how random the connection to the servers could be, sometimes a load could be 20 seconds and other times it could be much longer. One load was so long, I started reading something on my phone and completely missed the game being ready and I only noticed it when I crashed. It also meant that occasionally, as the game was loading in, assets would load in at different rates. One time I noticed it, the game had all the buildings for an airport, but took another few seconds to load the ground. While I understand what the developers are going for with an always connected experience, it just didn’t work for me the way it should have.

Visually, this game and the previous ones are some of the best-looking games around. This is not because of their photorealism, but rather it is because of everything having that ‘seen it before’ vibe. When you see an airport you know, it feels like a real place, which helps ground the experience, counter-intuitive to a flying game I know. I often do the Melbourne to Sydney flight, thanks to Maxi-Geek and being able to do that myself was a nice treat. Having the clouds be real-time and mapped to the way the clouds were in the real world, which was also nice. The detail on the various planes has been a strength of the series for the longest time and I am happy to see it continue here. Being able to walk around the planes, helicopters and such is also a great experience with this version of the game.

Sadly, with the game needing to load assets from the servers as it plays, you will notice a lot of pop-in with the game. This does not impact your plane directly, but if you swap between the exterior view and cockpit view, you will often see higher quality assets being loaded in. This also extends to the ground below you, at a distance you have basic textures, but as you get closer, the higher quality ones replace them and it is not as smooth as it can be.

The audio is sadly a hot mess, now the planes and music are great, but the voice work is so bad, I wanted to turn it off. The good as I said is the planes and music, hearing the difference in engine types and sizes is great, especially when you are powering up a much larger plane for take-off. The music helps give you a sense of freedom, evoking a sense of wonder as you soar through the skies, even the music in the menus is nice. But the voice working being text-to-speech is just disgusting. This is not an AI thing, as TTS has been around for decades, but here it just feels cheap and gross. What makes it even more offensive is when you visit airports around the world, much of the voice work is the same. This means if you spend time at airports in Australia, the voice work is AI-american, go to Japan, its AI-american. When the voice options were shown in the character creator, I was hoping the stinted work was just for those samples, but nope it was telling me what to expect.

Microsoft Flight Simulator on PlayStation 5 is a good game, it offers you exactly what you expect, the chance to soar across the skies in various planes, helicopters and more. The career mode will give you a lot of opportunities to try and fly in different conditions and the photo mode is a nice relaxing experience, but with a little challenge to complete. Where the game falls for me is the need to stream almost everything, which means if your internet speed is not the best, you are gonna get stuck in load screens and with constantly loading textures when playing. The Text-to-speech voice work is bad and just should not exist in a game like this, more so when you see how much some versions cost. If you have always wanted to take flight and never had the chance until now, then get your pilots licence, just know there is some turbulence in these skies.

The Score

7.5

Review code provided by Xbox

The Pros

The tutorials will give you the best foundation to ensure you can fly the games many vehicles

When the game is all loaded in and you are soaring through the skies, with the ground speeding below you, it looks amazing…

The Cons

… but a lot of that is depending on your internet speed, which means any issues present in long loads, texture pop in and more

The text-to-speech voice work feels cheap and does not match the locations you visit