Today Microsoft announced that its upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will have a technical alpha test phase available to the public, albeit not everyone will be able to participate.
According to the announcement made on the official website, the alpha will be focusing on testing specific services and will be available only on PC, so you’re out of luck if you’re on Xbox Series X|S.
On top of that, it’ll be a closed alpha, so not everyone who applies will be chosen to participate. Only those who are will be notified via email and will be get access to the client.
If you want to try your luck and get a slot, you can sign up via the Microsoft Insider Sign-up survey. Do keep in mind that you’ll have to provide your dxdiag file in order to prove that your rig fulfills the system requirements.
The dates for the alpha have not been announced but Microsoft is targeting 2-3 days in a weekend in October.
The client provided won’t be the full simulator and it’ll include only “Free Flight and a limited amount of Career, Challenges, and Discovery.” It also won’t be accessible anymore once the technical alpha ends.
The developers are aiming to test the following services:
- CDS – Package and content streaming
- EntitlementService – User entitlements related to the sim and player inventory
- TokenService (Auth) – User authentication service
- Career – Manages missions and progression for career mode
- Challenge Series – Provides the list of challenges and manages the rotation of challenges each week
- UserStorage – Storage of content for cross platform usage (avatar, career, statistics, etc.)
- World – Used for improvements to the world map
- Multiplayer – Service which replicates aircraft and allows users to see each other
- ClientDispatcher – Primary service for multiplayer servers
- WorldMap – Display other aircraft on the world map
- CognitiveCache – Stores TTS requests
- Live AirTraffic 24H – Display air traffic in gameplay
- Live MarineTraffic 24H – Display Marine traffic in gameplay
- WeatherWeb – Displays live weather data
- ServerCoordinator – Monitor the number of users in multiplayer and add/remove game servers as needed
- WeatherDownloader – Downloads the weather files / METAR data
- WeatherProcessor – Parse downloaded weather files and process into a format usable by the sim
If you’d like to hear more about Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, which releases on November 19, 2024, you can enjoy our hands-on preview with plenty of interesting details for your perusal.
You can also watch our interview with Head of MSFS Jorg Neumann and Asobo CEO Sebastian Wloch, another with Asobo CCO David Dedeine, and one featuring Chris Burnett of Working Title and Brandon Yaeger of Got Friends about their work on MSFS 2024.
Last, but not least, you can take a look at our A-10 flight through the Grand Canyon, our first look at the extensive pilot customization, another at the first mission of the Career Mode, a video featuring the new walk-around move showing off a Boeing 737 MAX up close and personal, and a challenge with the A-10 over the Blue Ridge Mountains.