Flight Sim World to fly out of Early Access, sets course for Phase 2

Dovetail Games has announced that Flight Sim World (FSW) has finished its Steam Early Access phase and is poised to get busy on Phase 2 development. I picked it up early in the Early Access and found it to be quite capable, and a bargain at the Early Access price of $24.99. Now that Early Access pricing has expired, it will cost you $39.99 which, while not quite the bargain price I paid, is still pretty good in my opinion. For that, you get a collection of seven general aviation planes, running the gamut from the Van's RV-7, a two-seat sport plane, to a six-seat Piper Seneca V.

There has been a lot of angst around this title from the crowd that views DLC as the Devil's business model, as they remain firmly convinced that spending hundreds of hours doing intricate design and coding work should be done as a charity. When you consider that FSW not only includes seven payware quality airplanes but also a very sophisticated mission editor, I can't even begin to understand the grousing.

That having been said, the concentration on general aviation planes to the total exclusion of jet airliners seems to have upset the folks that for whatever reason don't just go get a copy of X-Plane (note: X-Plane goes for a lot more money than FSW. A lot.) if they want that level of complexity. When you consider that FSW also includes a previous Dovetail product, Flight School, it makes a certain kind of sense to start with more approachable airplanes, right?

All that will soon be water under the bridge, though, as Dovetail also released some details regarding what we can expect in Phase 2. While indications are that the next area of focus will be dynamic and live weather, things like commercial airliners, IFR and ATC upgrades, and overall improvements to the FSW world are also on the list.

I remain confident that these things will get done based on the update history Early Accessors have already seen. Just since the time I came on board, Dovetail has added the ability to start all aircraft from a cold and dark state, advanced weather featuring trueSKY technology, lighting and rendering updates, and countless fixes and performance improvements.

The first Phase 2 update is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 1.

Flight Sim World is now available to purchase from Steam for $39.99.