Despite some surprisingly low Flight Simulator system requirements, the Ideal Spec requires more RAM than storage

The official X account put together a chart that shows the system requirements for Microsoft Flight Simulator, and it's surprisingly optimized. You could technically run the game with a system purchased almost a decade earlier. This could mean that your old graphics card or CPU is worth less than the $200 Microsoft Flight Simulator Aviator Edition bundle.

Minimum requirements: An Intel Core i7-6800K with a GeForce GTX 960 is sufficient to run the game as long as you have at least 16 GB RAM. Recommended requirements swap out 16 GB RAM for 32 GB, and recommend either an RTX2080 or Radeon RX5700XT GPU. These specs aren't incredibly demanding, especially considering how impressive Flight Simulator is. The 2024 update, which launches on November 19, includes new mission types, aircraft to use, and pilots with real legs. It also has an improved physics system that gives prospective pilots greater control.

The top recommended specs, however, are still quite monstrous and require a fairly beefy system to get started. Microsoft's "ideal spec" actually demands more RAM than storage. This is the first modern game that I can recall to do this.

You can thank the cloud, if you compare this to the previous version. The current version of Flight Sim, with all its world updates can be up to 10 times the size of the new Flight Sim 2024 Edition. If you want to go crazy with mods, you could theoretically reach a ridiculous 2 TB install size. It's almost impossible to believe that the new game will only take up 50 GB.

You can buy the Standard Edition of the game for $70. The Deluxe Edition is $100. The Premium Deluxe Edition is $130. And the Aviator Edition costs $200. The $200 edition does not include a plastic model of the plane or commemorative pins. This edition includes everything from the Premium Deluxe Edition. It includes 25 aircraft, 10 airports and 30 aircraft spanning the last three years.

This isn't the most expensive digital version of a video game we've ever seen. Not including the one-off $2,000 games. The much-banned $250 Escape from Tarkov Unheard Edition cost $250 earlier this year. It is a lot of cash to spend on a video game. And it's a lot more than you can get from the GTX 970 graphics card.