This was the first “official” Flight Simulator from Microsoft for IBM PCs. It was marketed with the tagline “If flying your IBM PC got any more realistic, you'd need a license". It had some interesting modes like the dogfight mode and the ability to use it for crop-dusting.
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Flight Simulator 3 (1988)
The next major installment in the series was Flight Simulator 3, which introduced “high-res” graphics and allowed users to customise the the display. It came with three aircrafts: Gates Learjet 25, Cessna Skylane, and Sopwith Camel.
YouTube/ Microsoft Flight Simulator Within a year, Microsoft introduced a generation of improvements in the franchise. 4.0 brought improved aircraft models, random weather patterns, a new sailplane, and dynamic scenery to the game.
Flight Simulator 4 (1989)
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Flight Simulator 95 (1995)
This was the first FS game that was released for CD-ROMs and offered proper 3D graphics and even the ability to make your own airports.The successor to this game was FS 98, which was more of a service update to this version brought some minor graphical changes
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Flight Simulator 2000 (1998)
This was the gamechanger in the series. Marking the dawn of a new millennium, this game brought 3D elevation, a real-world weather system and as many as over 17,000 new airports. The graphics too looked awesome for the time, taking advantage of better CPUs.
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Flight Simulator 2002 (2001)
Starting with this, the franchise finally started looking and feeling more modern, with better graphics and enhanced realism. This version introduced ATC communications and made the gameplay a bit smoother even on older hardware.
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Flight Simulator X (2006)
This is the longest serving member of the franchise, running 14 years without a major update. This was because it was really, really good. The graphics still look really good, you had dozens of aircrafts to fly and in 2014 it even got Steam support for multiplayer gaming.
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Flight Simulator 2020 (2020)
We are going to go out on a limb and say this has to be the nicest looking simulator in the recent years. It's got 4K graphics, real weather and map data from Bing Maps and just an overall true-to-life (at times larger-than-life) vibe.