At the start of this month, Microsoft released Alpha build 1.2.5 for its upcoming Flight Simulator title. Since then, the firm has prioritized addressing the issues with the release, followed by invitations being sent out to further participants. Last week, it was revealed that an upcoming Alpha update was just around the corner.
Now, Microsoft has unveiled build 1.2.10, bringing a plethora of technical improvements to existing features, along with the previously announced Airbus A320 NEO. In the general weekly development update post, meanwhile, information regarding upcoming Alpha updates has been revealed.
For starters, although a Partnership Series update was expected to make its way to Flight Simulator fans this week, it looks like that will be arriving a few days later than was indicated by the "mid April" description. As of yet, no details on which aircraft partner will be unveiled (quite possibly next week) have been made available.
Moving on to the now available Alpha build 1.2.10, the new content that has been added is limited to the Airbus A320 NEO. However, there are plenty of improvements introduced to various components of the game, especially airports. There is also a rather long list of known issues, with separate sections for displays, flight and guidance system, sound-related problems, and more. You can read through the full changelog to find out more about these.
Rather interestingly, Microsoft has also made some key factors known regarding upcoming Alpha updates. As far as build 1.2.12.0 is concerned, it is slated for a release in seven days, bringing SDK bug fixes, air traffic control (ATC) bug fixes, an experimental neural TTS solution, and more. Much earlier in the testing phase is build 1.3.0.0, for which an end-of-April release is being targeted. This will be bringing the Boeing 747 for community testing as far as new content is concerned, along with bug fixes. The full build notes will be posted once these updates are released.
The Alpha invitation process is still ongoing, so keep an eye out for potential email invites. With the start of May a couple of weeks later, Episode 8 of the Feature Discovery Series focusing on instrument flight rules (IFR) is expected to be released.