MS Flight Simulator gets VR mode with free update on December 22nd

Microsoft Flight Simulator will get a VR mode with the SIM Update 2 on December 22, Microsoft and developer Asobo have announced. VR mode will work with all headsets, including those from Oculus and HTC Vive.

Not only will the sim itself work in VR, but all menus will also be visible with the headset on, says Asobo’s Martial Brossard in a Q&A session on Twitch, around 36 minutes. That was not the case in test versions. As a result, users do not have to put on and take off the glasses if they want to adjust things in the menu.

The update will be released on December 22, along with other improvements to the sim. A World Update will follow in January with the United Kingdom; the previous World Update focused on the United States.

The beta for VR was public . It was known before the release that VR support would come via an update , but when was still unknown. Initially, Microsoft wanted to limit support to the HP Reverb G2 headset, but now with the release, the company will immediately support all common headsets. Brossard specifically mentions Facebook’s Oculus headsets and HTC’s Vive models.

Microsoft Flight Simulator came out in August this year and was Microsoft’s first Flight Sim game since 2006. Before that, the company regularly released new titles in this franchise. After such a long period of silence, Microsoft no longer had any Flight Simulator developers on the stable and so development was outsourced to the French Asobo Studios.