Microsoft Flight Simulator Game of the Year Edition
Do not buy this game unless you have an insanely fast internet connection and immense patience
Out of the 180.6 hours I currently have on this game, around 176 of those hours have been spent installing MSFS. To make matters worse, you can’t install the game using Steam- you have to enter an in-game installer that downloads incredibly slowly, if it even downloads at all.
When I first bought this game at release, my installer was bugged and I couldn’t actually complete the download (I always got an error message at random times throughout the download) . I had contacted both Steam and Microsoft support to fix that issue but they both didn’t help at all. A couple months after I’d given up I decided to try and install it again after I saw there was an update and for the first time it actually completed the download. This took several days and effectively commandeered my computer as you can’t close the MSFS launcher without losing all your download progress, and you can’t play other games as the download is very resource intensive. Additionally, despite having internet that’s usually about 20-50mbps down, the download speed for MSFS is more often than not around 3mbps, if not lower.
– Real player with 180.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Real-Time Simulation Games.
I do not recommend this game for two reasons. First, and main reason, is that this game is completely server dependent. Without good quality broadband internet connection, you will not be able to even open the game after a few days. Second, Microsoft and Asobo force what seem like work-in-progress and poorly tested upates/content onto their customers. The sim looks amazing under ideal circumstances, but my overall experience to date has been that of a beta release product. It just comes across as corporate greed, trying to save money by not hiring enough testers, instead getting their customers to do all the testing and bug feedback for them. All the while charging for the game as if it was a finished product. I have wasted countless hours trying to fix whatever bugs they’ve introduced each update cycle, just to have new bugs introduced the next time around, and its beyond frustrating at this point. I do not support this system of development and deployment. All I want is for Microsoft/Asobo to make all updates and additional content optional, even if opting out of updates would disable all online functionality of the game.
– Real player with 166.1 hrs in game