Lockheed Martin revealed the “next-generation” incarnation of its flight simulator Prepar3D, called Prepar3D Fuse.
The new platform switches to Unreal Engine 5, while incorporating a full rendition of Earth by the geospatial data provider Blackshark.ai.
The catch is that you likely can’t have it, as it’s directed to enterprise and defense sector customers. It’s price isn’t publicly listed on the official website or anywhere because it’s blindingly expensive.
So if you’re one of the few holdhouts still using the obsolescing Lockheed Martin Prepar3D for your flight simulation hobby or private training, your chances of getting your hands on this are pretty low.
The announcement was accompanied by a trailer, which you can watch below.
We also get a list of features.
- A full‑earth, material‑encoded globe that includes more than 1,000 geo‑referenced airports and high‑resolution cityscapes powered by Blackshark.ai.
- Physically accurate atmospheric and weather models, multi‑spectral sensor suites, and proven SAGE Infrared Math Model to enable realistic training and validation of next‑generation weapons and platforms.
- AI‑driven semi‑automated‑forces engine that generates realistic behavior for individual crews up to brigade‑level exercises, dramatically reducing role‑player workload and accelerating scenario creation.
- Full compliance with distributed interactive simulation, common image generator interface and native UnrealEngine workflows to ensure seamless integration with legacy assets and rapid deployment of new content.
The press release included a statement Adam Breed, chief of innovation at Lockheed Martin.
“Prepar3D Fuse provides unmatched synthetic training for the warfighter. By marrying our proven SAGE and Prepar3D technologies with Unreal Engine’s real‑time graphics and Blackshark.ai’s global terrain, we give operators a high‑fidelity training environment while cutting development time and driving cost efficiencies.”
We also hear from Michael Putz, CEO of Blackshark.ai.
“This marks the beginning of reality and simulation converging toward omniscient worlds that think, evolve, and remain in perfect sync with a changing planet.”
Word salads aside, you probably shouldn’t feel too bad if you can’t afford spending millions for this “next-gen” simulation platform.
Prepar3D has been long surpassed in most aspects by enthsuiast simulation platforms like Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, DCS World, and X-Plane 12, which proved that simulative precision and visual fidelity are not antithetical.
Incidentally, the name Blackshark.ai may feel familiar to some, as the company worked with Microsoft on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, only to be dropped for MSFS 2024 in favor of a proprietary solution.
It’s certainly interesting to see Lockheed Martin call the graphics of Prepar3D Fuse “cutting‑edge,” because gamers and even flight simulation enthusiasts have seen better for a decade. Falcon BMS, which is an user-driven mod of a simulator released in 1998 looks considerably more fetching.
Game developers have learned a long time ago that using Unreal Engine 5 won’t make your software look good on its own, and this is certainly further evidence of that.
It’s also funny to see Blackshark boasting this as “the first planetary-scale simulation platform” while we’ve had ” planetary-scale simulation platforms” running on our humble gaming PCs for decades.
I suppose corporates gonna corporate, and corporate customers will likely respond, as they have proven time and time again and in many fields to be less demanding than gamers, but a tiny bit of self-awareness wouldn’t hurt.
The silver lining is that not many will be tortured by FOMO for not being able to add Fuse to their collection of simulators at home.
