L1 SECTOR · NORTH-UP
PAUSED
The game now starts like a finished title: a notice screen, the studio cards and the HOLD SHORT title with its runway marking drawing in, all to the title music, with the tower radio murmuring under the menu. Any key skips it; the music can be switched off in Settings.
The shift opens with a picture of the weather: a wind compass on your runway with head- and crosswind, tiles for visibility, cloud, weather and pressure, and a three-hour forecast timeline with wind arrows and flying conditions. The original METAR and TAF are still there, every code labelled with what it means, so you learn to read them.
Runways, taxiways, aprons and grass now use photographed surfaces with rubber in the touchdown zones, sealed cracks, concrete slab joints, oil stains at the stands and grass that varies from lush to dry.
Departing aircraft now lift off at rotation speed and climb like their type (heavy freighters slowly, business jets steeply), instead of rolling to the end of the runway and jumping into the air. The tower view, the map and the radar all show the same height.
Three clear choices: Career (the six lessons first, then your postings), Play (free play and scenarios) and Daily. A shift you left waiting shows as Resume in the tile it came from.
White floodlight pools on the apron instead of an even yellow wash, landing lights that throw a proper beam down the runway, a faint town glow and a skyline on the horizon, and taxi lines that no longer flicker or glow in the dark.
Taxiway lights are easier to see, and the red stop bars no longer swell into fat bars when you zoom in.
The shift opens with the weather report (METAR) and the forecast (TAF), each explained in plain words, and waits until you acknowledge it.
Start a shift in the real weather of any airport you choose. The game then develops it along the real forecast, or keeps fetching the newest real report every 30 minutes if you pick the live option.
Every shift now gets its own weather: a calm or breezy day, a front that turns the wind at its own time, thunderstorms that come at any hour and pass overhead or stay in the distance, or fog that lifts in the morning or forms at night. The shift briefing tells you what is expected and when. The fixed weather choices are still there if you want a particular day.
Zoom the map out past the airport and it turns into an approach radar view: range rings, the approach course with mile marks, the holding pattern and the aircraft the ground map no longer shows, with their height and speed.
No more light line on the horizon at dawn and at night, departures that turn back no longer skim the ground, and distant aircraft can be clicked.
The 20-minute timeline at the top now slides smoothly instead of jumping.
The 2D map now stays dark at any hour, like a real ground-radar display (Settings → Display → “Map follows the time of day” brings the daylight map back). Training aircraft flying circuits no longer turn in front of airliners on final: they extend or orbit until the traffic has passed, and if anyone ever closes up on the aircraft ahead, the tower sends it around.
Press 3D on the map toolbar to look out of the tower cab: the airport built from its real layout, every aircraft and vehicle where it really is, runway and taxiway lights to the real rules, floodlit aprons, jet bridges, day and night, fog and rain, tyre smoke and spray on touchdown. Look round, zoom like binoculars, follow the aircraft you select, and use the minimap to see where you are looking. On the 2D map, aircraft in the air now show their height and a shadow, so you can see at a glance who is still airborne.
You'll give your clearances by speaking into a microphone, like a real controller; the keyboard stays equally good. It already works inside the game in our test builds: hold a key, say “Havel one zero one, cleared to land”, and the aircraft is cleared. In testing on 1,500 spoken instructions it never once carried out the wrong one: when it isn't sure, the pilot simply asks you to “say again”. Before we switch it on for everyone, it has to understand every voice, accent and microphone straight away, with no training or setup.
for Windows first, then macOS.
When the queue at the runway gets long, you'll be able to let departures use the arrival runway too, slotting take-offs in between landings so the line clears faster. It stays hidden until it's as safe as everything else at the airport.
Aircraft take off and land into the wind, so when the wind swings round, the whole airport has to turn around. That is now one of the hardest and most rewarding moments of a shift.