Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of the most ambitious simulators ever made – thanks to satellite data and cloud-based terrain processing, it offers a faithful reconstruction of the entire planet, which the player flies across in dozens of civilian and smaller aircraft, from small sport planes to airliners. Virtual reality support added a key dimension to this already exceptional project: a pilot can physically turn their head, track the instrument panel with peripheral vision, and judge the distance to the runway through natural binocular vision, which is far more intuitive for precise landings than looking at a flat monitor and significantly reduces the need to rely solely on instruments.

The depth of the simulation, from realistic weather through airport traffic to the finely modeled cockpits of individual aircraft, makes the VR mode an extremely demanding yet immensely satisfying experience for aviation fans, who find a far more natural way of controlling flight in VR. Watching the sky, clouds, and shifting lighting throughout the day feels far more convincing in virtual reality, since the player perceives the depth and scale of the landscape naturally rather than through a flat image, and the view down onto real cities and rivers reconstructed from real-world data, unfolding beneath the aircraft's wings on an unexpected scale, is just as powerful.

The addition of VR support was welcomed by the player community as one of the most significant steps in the simulator's history and cemented its reputation as the technological flagship of the genre, even though its high performance demands required players to have powerful computers to run the simulation smoothly in VR. Microsoft Flight Simulator in VR shows just how well large, data-driven simulations can combine with the immersion of virtual reality, and it remains a reference title for anyone interested in flying in virtual space.

Why play: For anyone interested in flying in virtual space, it is the genre's technological flagship, provided you have a powerful computer able to smoothly render the simulation in VR.