Obviously, a lot has changed since. It’s no longer just a glorified pet project. These days, Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of the most graphically impressive (and taxing) games available on the market. However, one thing that has yet to change with Microsoft Flight Simulator is its offerings. In particular, why helicopters haven’t been added to the game yet. You’d think that Asobo Studio (or the previous developers) would have thought about adding helicopters by now. They fly too, you know? As it turns out, that’s exactly what Asobo was thinking after it recently announced that the flight sim is going to officially introduce helicopters as a playable aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator.
When are helicopters coming to Microsoft Flight Simulator?
At the moment, helicopters aren’t available in Microsoft Flight Simulator and the game’s flight model doesn’t even support helicopters. Of course, this hasn’t stopped modders from attempting to add them to the game. One of the most successful mods for Microsoft Flight Simulator adds an Airbus H135 to its list of available aircraft. It’s an amazing achievement considering that it only took the mod’s development team 30 days to make it happen. Now that Asobo is almost finished porting over Microsoft Flight Simulator to the Xbox Series S/X, it looks like they will finally have the time to add other features into the game. Just in case you missed it, Asobo is releasing Microsoft Flight Simulator on the Xbox Series S/X on July 27, 2021. The port might be to blame for how relatively little content Asobo has added to Microsoft Flight Simulator in recent months. Because it is a graphically intensive game, the studio has had to get creative in order to make it run well on a less powerful machine. It’s safe to say that the studio has succeeded after Asobo confirmed a few weeks ago that the game is now more optimized because of the changes that the development team had made to the game’s code. Now, all that remains is to make sure that the launch goes smoothly. Having said that, Asobo is already looking toward the future of Microsoft Flight Simulator. The studio recently shared the development roadmap for Microsoft Flight Simulator through to September 2021. Just in case you’re wondering where Asobo confirmed that helicopters are coming, it’s not on the roadmap. You can find it in the Feedback Snapshot where it is listed as #01 on the Top Wishlist for Microsoft Flight Simulator and as a Planned addition for 2022.
