Microsoft Flight Simulator update nearly halves download size

Thanks to an impressive new update, Microsoft and Asobo have nearly halved the size of Microsoft Flight Simulator, bringing the total size of the game to around 83GB.

Everyone loves Microsoft Flight Simulator – we've established that already – but not everyone loved the gargantuan size of the game's download files on their PCs. Before today, getting the game and its various packs installed on your rig would cost you the better part of 170GB – but a new update has almost chapped that in half.

As spotted by the folks at PC Gamer, the initial download on Steam will now only hit you for 81GB, a whopping 89GB less than it was before this update (also known as Sim Update 4, or patch 1.16.20.0 if you want to get technical).

The technical wizards at Microsoft haven't revealed how they managed to do this, though they did note that the studio "performed some optimization for the initial full download of the title". Mysterious.

Curiously, you will still need 150GB of space on your system for the installation, and the game's Microsoft Store page says it'll take up 127.01GB worth of space, too. Rest assured, it comes in at about 83GB once kicked off.

At The Game Awards last year, Microsoft revealed that the game was coming to Xbox Series X/S in Summer 2021. In our review, we said it was “a remarkable release fit for seasoned pilots and beginners alike.” We weren't alone in that opinion: by December 2020, the game had attracted more than 2 million players.