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‘Airplane Mode’ Recreates The Real Flight Sim Experience Of Being A Passenger

Mike Diver

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‘Airplane Mode’ Recreates The Real Flight Sim Experience Of Being A Passenger

Featured Image Credit: AMC, Microsoft/Xbox Game Studios

The recently released Microsoft Flight Simulator has proven to be something of a revelatory experience - assuming your PC is up to the stress of running it. The game - well, the sim - uses map data from Bing to recreate the world inside your computer, and allows you to fly to pretty much anywhere in it. With a Metascore of 93 from 53 reviews, it's clear that Flight Sim is in line to be one of the best-received new releases of 2020.

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However, for most of us, we're more used to sitting in economy class than we are gazing out over stunning vistas from the cockpit. And guess what - there's a game for that, too. As picked up just the other day by PC Gamer, Airplane Mode is the game for people who want to recreate the experience of being trapped inside a gigantic metal tube with a few hundred total strangers. Sounds pretty dull, huh. And that's... the point?

Check out the new trailer below - or on YouTube here - which confirms that American TV network AMC (home to Breaking Bad, Mad Men and The Walking Dead) has stepped in as the game's publishers.

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Airplane Mode has been a work-in-progress project for developer Hosni Auji for some time - it was shown off at IndieCade and PlayNYC in 2018, and the game's old website provides a pretty efficient synopsis for what players should expect:

"[Airplane Mode] is a game where the player is a passenger, not the pilot. Aboard a commercial airliner, the player decides how they want to spend time at their window seat while waiting out their transatlantic flight - leaving the rest to modern aviation. Flying is the safest mode of travel so there is nothing to worry about. Just sit back and enjoy."

Airplane Mode / Credit: AMC, Bacronym
Airplane Mode / Credit: AMC, Bacronym
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Note that the game is called Flight Simulator on the site, which evidently needs an update (a new one is here). The AMC-posted trailer, meanwhile, which highlights the game's short-haul option from JFK to Halifax (you can also fly from New York to Iceland), describes the game thusly: "Airplane Mode encourages players to sit back - but not too much, this is Coach after all - and experience the Zen-like routines of commercial flying. Expect delays."

Ah yes, those Zen-like routines. Do we miss them, in the COVID-19 era? A bit, maybe? For me, getting on a plane has never been a big deal, as I sit down with my Switch charged, movies loaded onto my phone, and a good book (and, probably, some kind of fizzy pop and water from the airport shops, cos buying a drink on the plane itself is a financial no-no). It's sort of chill. But does that make me excited to play Airplane Mode, though? Erm, maybe.

Airplane Mode / Credit: AMC, Bacronym
Airplane Mode / Credit: AMC, Bacronym
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So, who is this for? Well, it's for people who like... sims, I suppose. Who like to swap the fantasy that video games can offer for the reality of the everyday. We've seen various truck and train sims do amazingly well, commercially - although you do tend to be in charge of those vehicles - and Microsoft Flight Simulator is doing the business, too. But to be the passenger, for anywhere between two and a half and six hours, in real time? We're gonna need to swap that pop for some booze. (And I mean the real stuff, not the premium drinks the game offers.)

In-game, Airplane Mode will enable you to do more than just look out the window - assuming you get a window seat, that is. PC Gamer explains that your hand luggage will contain a book, a mobile phone to mess around with, and you'll have access to in-flight services and entertainment options (copyright-free movies FTW). A meal will be served, and hopefully you can kick the seat in front when its occupant leans back, too. Randomised events - children crying, delays, wifi interruptions and cabin-bouncing turbulence - will keep things... interesting?

Airplane Mode is coming to PC and Mac later in 2020. You can wishlist it on Steam right now. I kind of desperately do want it, actually, while also, I absolutely don't. Which is very 2020, isn't it.

Topics: Microsoft Flight Simulator

Mike Diver
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