As a long-time enthusiast of flight simulation games, I must say that the release of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has left me absolutely spellbound! The incorporation of machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to generate the game’s map data is nothing short of revolutionary.


The highly-anticipated Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is now available, with its creators confirming that advanced machine learning and AI technologies were essential for its development. In a recent interview, senior developer Jorg Neumann explained that manually creating the game’s map data would have been impractical.

He explained to Rock Paper Shotgun that while machine learning and AI do involve extensive labeling of landscapes for a significant portion of our lives, it’s not the essence of what they are about. Instead, they are merely tools that aid us in our tasks.

As a gaming enthusiast, I used to worry about technology advancements in machine learning and AI potentially taking away jobs. But when it comes to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, that wasn’t the story at all. In fact, Neumann shared that the only thing we’ve managed to do is expand, not contract.

100 individuals were responsible for creating the 2020 version of Microsoft Flight Simulator. In contrast, for the latest release in 2024, a team of 200 from Asobo Studio took charge, with an additional 600 people from various support studios joining forces, resulting in a grand total of 800 individuals contributing to the development of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

2024’s Microsoft Flight Simulator employs machine learning to produce intricate landscape details. Approximately 28,000 “tiles,” each symbolizing various aspects of our planet like forests, deserts, rivers, etc., were tagged by the team. This data was subsequently used to train a machine learning system that generates potential assets. These assets are then examined by a human and the system is re-educated based on their feedback.

In simpler terms, Neumann explained that when a mistake was made, he would acknowledge it by saying something like, “Ah, I see, I made an error.” Then, he would correct the issue by retraining it. This process was repeated in four distinct steps.

Previously, the management at EA Sports stated that they couldn’t have launched EA Sports College Football 25 on schedule and with high quality without employing machine learning and AI to create a wide variety of assets. The CEO of EA, Andrew Wilson, has mentioned that these advancements in AI will result in job losses temporarily. However, he is optimistic that the market for game development jobs will expand as a result of the new positions that will be created.

2024’s release of Microsoft Flight Simulator encountered unexpected hurdles on its launch day, November 19, primarily because the developers had significantly underestimated the interest in the game, leading to server issues and other complications.

As a thrilled gaming enthusiast, I’m excited to share that my anticipated game is now up for grabs on both Xbox and PC platforms! Not only that, but it’s also been added to the Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass collections, making it easily accessible for fellow subscribers like myself.

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2024-11-20 17:41