The Airbus airliner experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator is getting awfully crowded these days as veteran developer FSLabs have announced that they are throwing their hat into the ring with promises of a high fidelity A321ceo and Neo models for MSFS. The aircraft was teased and essentially confirmed weeks ago but the team have now officially taken the wraps off with an updated website and details on what the team plan to bring to the table.

Differentiation in the world of Airbus airliner simulation

FSLabs have a tall hill to climb with their announcement of an A321ceo for Microsoft Flight Simulator. The Airbus A320 series has gotten rather crowded over the last few years. When the sim launched in 2020, the A320neo from Asobo was a fairly basic affair that was then heavily modified over the years by community open source developers FlyByWire. Then things got a little more interesting when Fenix Simulations announced their A320ceo and surprised a lot of people by offering an incredibly high fidelity offering. They followed that up with A319 and A321ceo additions.

Meanwhile, Microsoft, Asobo and partner iniBuilds helped to update the included offering with the A320neo V2. That also helped to ensure that Xbox users who couldn’t use the FlyByWire offering. That same partnership have now expanded the Airbus line-up even more with the A321LR (essentially the A321neo), A330 series and Beluga XL. If you like flying Airbuses, you have a lot of options these days.

With the announcement from FSLabs, this team are up against a market that is now saturated. They reportedly started on their A321 four years ago when the market was quite a bit more empty so its understandable that they have reached this point and are facing a more difficult market. How can they differentiate themselves? According to the announcement they are aiming for a high standard and a lot of variation within the A321 with wing fences, sharklets, IAE and CFM engine options. There’s also an integrated CPDLC, authentic A321 fuel system, GPS jamming, environmental effects, aircraft aging and maintenance, EFB, ACARS, as well as detailed visuals and audio. All of the usual high end accoutrements and a few unique items too.

The product is initially going to be for MSFS 2020 with a free 2024 upgrade. Both the A321ceo and A321neo are planned with no plans to do the LR or XLR. Some have been asking for discounted pricing if they are coming from the P3D version, however, the developers report that this is an entirely new product line on a different sim and thus would be a new purchase.

A live stream went up in the last 24 hours showing off the product with YouTuber Blackbox711 hosting the team.

No release date or pricing has been confirmed, however, from the above video and comments by the team it seems likely that a release is not too far off.

Check out this thread on the FSLabs forum and check out the new FSLabs website if you’re interested in more information.

Escaping a long shadow

I would be remiss to not also report on some of the community commentary since the initial announcement and then more fulsome official announcement in recent days.

FSLabs are still operating in the shadow of a scandal that broke out years ago. It’s one of a couple of issues that has clouded the initial announcement.

A 2018 A320 P3D release contained a test.exe file that was setting off anti-virus scanners. Initially dismissed by FSLabs, a lengthy series of back and forth comments between FSLabs and users on Reddit ultimately saw the developers admit the use of utility that most would consider as a kind of malware. It was all intended to try and prevent piracy but many users rebelled against the initially hidden tracking system.

Despite several years between then and now, this new announcement has brought back concerns that came up back then. Commentators on Discord communities, Reddit and beyond have refreshed their memories on what happened. Though past performance is not always an indicator of future, the incident nonetheless clouds recent announcements. An article at FSNews.eu covers the incident in far more detail if you’re interested.

FSLabs have a couple of mountains to climb with this product announcement. They need to offer up a quality release that competes with the best of what’s already available and simultaneously restore trust with flight simmers who tend to have long memories on issues like these. Will they succeed? We’ll know in time but high quality flight sim products are always a welcome sight even if it is a well trodden path at this point.