Microsoft Flight Simulator’s Developer Stream has become a cornerstone of the simulator’s community-facing communications. For long-time simmers and newcomers alike it’s the place where the team behind the sim — Microsoft and Asobo Studio — step outside the studio walls and talk directly to the players: showing roadmaps, explaining technical choices, answering community questions, and sometimes demoing features live. In this article I’ll explain the latest highlights about future features and priorities for Microsoft Flight Simulator, using the most recent Developer Stream below as source material.
Major Announcements & Reveals
- The Red Bull Air Race mode is planned for release in December 2025.
- Famous Flyer 13 will be the T-38A Talon jet trainer.
- The Boom XB-1 (supersonic aircraft) will be free to all simmers across all platforms.
- PlayStation 5 launch details:
- MSFS 2024 will launch on PS5 on 8 December 2025 with Sim Update 4 pre-installed.
- Cross-play with other platforms will not be supported due to backend/authentication constraints.
- At launch, only Microsoft’s own aircraft/add-ons will be available on the PS5 marketplace, with third-party content arriving later (expected in spring 2026).
- PS5 peripheral compatibility plans include support for the Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS 4 initially, with more devices planned.
Development, Performance & Features
Sim Update 4 & Performance
- Many core aircraft systems have been rewritten to run asynchronously and across multiple CPU cores, improving performance and reducing stutters.
- Optimizations in memory allocation, texture baking, animation scheduling, and subsystem grouping were also discussed.
- Night lighting was significantly overhauled: larger, higher-resolution textures baked/streamed dynamically, improving visual fidelity in cities at night.
- Improvements to atmospheric and cloud rendering are planned, though likely in a future update (beyond SU4).
Platform Parity & Content Strategy
- The roadmap suggests simultaneous City/World Updates for both MSFS 2020 and 2024 when feasible.
- Many of the 130 default aircraft will receive updates to artwork and systems; about 70 planes are targeted for updates.
- The team acknowledged a technical debt in maintaining and updating such a large aircraft fleet, and some planes may not be prioritized if they “don’t make sense” to update.
- Discussion on MSFS 2020:
- Sim Update 16.1 is planned to address critical fixes (e.g. crashes related to Nvidia Streamline).
- Sim Update 17 is tentatively slated for summer 2026.
- Some content from MSFS 2024 might be ported back to 2020 when technically feasible.
Feedback Snapshot – Bugs
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How to follow and get involved
- Watch/subscribe to the official stream channels — the live sessions are hosted on Twitch and posted to YouTube; the official MSFS website lists upcoming stream dates (the dev team posts schedules in weekly development updates and invites pre-submitted questions).
- Read the weekly Development Update posts — these are the formal written record and often include links to the stream, patch notes, and timelines.
- Participate in the community forums and social channels — the official forums and other community hubs frequently post stream recaps, timestamped discussions, and patched FAQs after each stream. Community recaps are invaluable for distilling long streams into the most actionable bits.