Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is finally here having officially launched a couple of hours ago on Xbox, Xbox Game Pass and PC. However due to the overwhelming amount of players trying to connect to the servers, those excited to take to the sky may be stuck waiting awhile longer.

Xbox Support as well as Flight Sim support have posted on social media that they are aware of the issues and are hard at work to resolve the issues.

"We are aware of user reports of long initial loading times into Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. With so many users initializing the sim concurrently, we have a large number of server requests. We are working to help resolve the issues as soon as possible." Says the Flight Sim support page.

Support is also saying if you are seeing your download get stuck they recommend a reinstall.

"For users whose initial load is past 90% and no longer progressing, we recommend a reboot. Otherwise we advise waiting to allow the loading to proceed as normal."

Flight Sim support has also said that certain planes may be unavailable due to the server issues if you do manage to get into the game.

"We are aware of reports of aircraft missing from the My Library and Aircraft Select screens in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. This issue is related to the server issues we are currently working to resolve. Please stay tuned for further updates."

While server issues at launch are never ideal for any game, the fact that Flight Sim 2024 is so popular at launch that it is having these issues should at least be an encouraging sign to Xbox. It's much better than dead servers right?

Personally speaking Flight Sim has been high on my list all year for what I had wanted to play. The 2020 version was gorgeous and great to play and 2024 seems to turn the fun factor up quite a bit. It will be interesting to see how they balance the simulation aspect with a more "fun" style of game play for those not as interested in a full on simulation experience.