With its Game of the Year Edition dropping this week, not to mention the first expansion with Reno Air Races, we got the chance to speak with Jorg Neuman, Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator to chat about both of those things, the recent console launch, and get a glimpse of what’s on the horizon.

A snippet.

One of the most exciting aspects of Microsoft Flight Simulator, especially for fans, is that Asobo not only communicates its plans for the immediate future but listens and keeps track of community requests and feedback. Since the game’s announcement, one of the things players have been asking for is the addition of fighter jets. With a separate bit of content set to debut alongside the new Top Gun next year, the Game of the Year Edition sees the arrival of the very first fighter jet - the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet.

Basically the sort of plane you need a callsign like Iceman or Maverick to pilot.

“One of the features that kept popping up [in community requests] was jets,” Jorg explains. “There are some from third parties in the marketplace, but we felt like it was important to provide something in the base version.” Compared to regular planes, adding a fighter jet into Flight Simulator presented enough of a challenge that the team had to make sure the game could handle that sort of speed.

“We had to make sure that engine was ready so that you can go over Mach 1 (1234.8 km/hr), and not only that but go over the terrain at that speed,” Jorg continues. “That puts pressure on the streaming engine, so we did all of that optimisation. There was also quite a bit of research we had to do for fighter jets, work out Sonic Booms and things like that. We’ve spent a lot of time just on this one plane, it's been in production for a year and a half if not longer. But, we wanted to get it right and that’s important to us.”

Our Full Microsoft Flight Simulator Interview