Almost an hour of Flight Simulator gameplay has leaked

Almost an hour of leaked technical alpha gameplay for Microsoft Flight Simulator has appeared online.

Developed by French studio Asobo, the new Flight Simulator uses textures and topographical data from Bing Maps, as well as 3D world features such as terrain and buildings generated using Microsoft’s Azure cloud tech.

Microsoft has claimed that the game’s terrain is so accurate that players can apply Visual Flight Rules to navigate using known roads, rivers and lakes.

It’s claimed that the game’s machine learning tech will detect elements like the location of trees in the world, add missing buildings and account for rooftop colour, all by examining data from Bing and streaming the data in real-time into the game.

Microsoft has said the feature will adapt to the player’s available bandwidth, so those with a fast internet connection will stream data and update much faster and closer to real-time.

[UPDATE: The videos have been removed]

[UPDATE 2: Asobo has detailed the Flight Simulator 2020 airports in a new video.]

Players can choose to experience real-time weather in whatever location they are flying, and a full day-night cycle is included.

The simulator itself will utilize a lot of legacy code from previous versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator, Microsoft said.

However, in-game physics and aerodynamics have been rewritten, with the sim now taking into account elements like ice on the wings, pollution particles, or how wind moves through buildings or across tree tops.

There will also be legacy settings for those who prefer how aircrafts performed in prior versions.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is set to release on PC and Xbox One this year.