Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 disastrous launch meant it briefly surpassed Overwatch 2 as one of the worst-rated games on Steam ever

(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has, ironically, not got off to a flying start, as its initial Steam rating places it as one of the worst-rated games on the storefront after it temporarily fell even lower than Overwatch 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

At the time of writing, only 24% of Flight Simulator 2024's reviews are positive, giving it a 'Mostly Negative' rating. This follows a launch where many players were grounded, stuck watching lengthy initial loading screens instead of taking to the skies. The devs acknowledged this in a tweet, pointing to the large amount of server requests caused by the number of players all initializing the simulator at the same time, but that wasn't where the problems ended. Reviews on Steam criticize it for being "a buggy mess" and "an objectively inferior experience with clunky controls, questionable performance, a user interface that would have been acceptable had it been 2012 and not 2024," amongst other complaints.

Needless to say, players aren't generally having a fantastic time, but at least the game's rating has risen slightly from what it once was. As pointed out on Reddit, it temporarily dipped to a 16.85% positive rating, which comes in significantly below Overwatch 2's all-time rating of 21% and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's 20%. Those aren't the absolute worst-rated games on the storefront right now – according to third-party site Steam 250, that title goes to War of the Three Kingdoms with an overall rating of 9% – but it's still far from a good start for the new Flight Simulator game. It also briefly went toe to toe with EA's 2010 real-time strategy game Command and Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, which still holds onto an overall rating of 16.76% according to SteamDB.

Even though facing a launch like this is far from ideal, hopefully developer Asobo Studio will be able to improve the situation over time. After all, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is still rated very positively on the platform – perhaps because fans were so eager to dive into the new installment that its current issues feel even more obvious.

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