Microsoft Flight Simulator is not necessarily the first game that comes to mind when you talk about tie-ins with the big screen. You would expect Fortnite and its ilk to be at the front of the queue, but the popular, and much-updated, aerial sim has teamed up ahead of the 1st March cinema release of Dune: Part Two and released a free content pack containing the sci-fi epic’s distinctive Ornithopter to the game.
Fans of the Dune universe will instantly recognize this distinctive vehicle with its multi-rotor dragonfly aesthetics.
Of course, flying something like this over Europe in the standard Flight Simulator world will ruin the illusion so the free game expansion also includes the terrain of the Planet Arrakis. This is no half-hearted name-drop. It is full new and unusual content for a game that generally veers to the super-technical rather than the science fiction.
Three new tutorials are included so you can learn to fly the thing; take-off, landing, and freefall. There are then six activities to take part in once you have mastered the basics and these include five time trials and a daring rescue mission tasking you to save your flight instructor before he is lost forever in a massive sandstorm.
The collab does not end there however as Microsoft is also touting a special Dune-themed Xbox Series S and the world’s first “floating controller”. This custom hardware is a prize a lucky fan will get their hands on by following the office Xbox account on X and retweeting the post.
Microsoft is also carting two full simulators around to give people the opportunity to experience the Ornithopter for “real” stating:
“Following their appearance at the world premiere in London and at the U.S premiere in New York, Xbox will bring two life-size Royal Atreides Ornithopter gaming simulators to the London Microsoft Experience Center on Oxford Circus starting February 16th and New York Microsoft Experience Center on Fifth Avenue starting February 26th.”
With this new opening up of Flight Simulator, it will be interesting to see what else is in store in the future as we await the launch of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024,
