Microsoft Flight Simulator is officially getting VR support, the studio today revealed. It’s not coming day-one, but VR support is expected to arrive alongside (or very near) the launch of HP’s upcoming Reverb G2 headset, which is slated to arrive sometime this fall.
Update (July 30th, 2020): Microsoft today announced in a blog post that official VR support for the new Microsoft Flight Simulator will arrive as a free update to the base game sometime this fall with the release of HP Reverb G2.
Eurogamer reports that HP Reverb G2 will be the first VR headset supported by the game.
“We’re starting with them,” Microsoft’s head of Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann told Eurogamer, “There’s some extra work to be done for some of the others. I mean, we’re going to bring it to all the devices – all the common ones. It’s just going to take a few more months after that.”
An official HP retailer was spotted clearly advertising a September 15th release date for the headset, however HP confirmed with Road to VR that it hasn’t announced a date any more specific than ‘Fall 2020’. Whatever the case, it appears VR support will come fairly close to its late summer launch on August 18th.
Update (July 13th, 2020): Pre-orders for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 are now live, with a launch date slated for August 18th. A new FAQ posted on the game’s official Discord channel stated today that while still unconfirmed at this time, VR support is still a “top wish list item post-launch.”
We were hoping for more news regarding when VR support can be expected, however the studio is staying mum on any further talk of VR support.
Original Article (October 10th, 2019): Speaking to AVSIM, head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jörg Neumann reveals that although VR support wasn’t initially on the drawing table, that they’re trying to make it a possibility.
“It honestly wasn’t our plan [to support VR], but we are listening, and we heard it, so we will try our darnedest to make it happen,” Neumann explains. “Whether or not we’re going to pull it off for launch, […] we can’t commit to that at this point in time, but we have the desire.”
Microsoft Flight Simulator is slated to release on Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs sometime in 2020 (see update).
“Given that we genuinely want to make the sim that simmers want, we will try to prioritize that over other things,” Neumann continues. “In general, that is our outlook. We made a plan years ago of what we’re making, and we’ll adjust our plans based on feedback that we’re getting.”
You can listen to the entire audio of the interview with Neumann and CEO and co-founder of Asobo Studio Sebastian Wloch here, which touches how the project started in 2016, and more details on the inclusion of real-world weather, traffic and imagery to the sim.