Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) 40th Anniversary Edition
Skip · Strategy · 2026
Steam Deck PlayableThe verdict
SKIP IT.
The value isn't there at $59.99.
- Reviews
- 79% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 8 GB of memory, NVIDIA GTX 770 | AMD Radeon RX 570, 150 GB of storage. Windows only.
From gliders and helicopters to wide-body jets, fly highly detailed and accurate aircraft in the Microsoft Flight Simulator 40th Anniversary Edition. The world is at your fingertips.
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
- How long it takes to beat isn't in our data. The score is docked for the missing length.
The value story
It has never been cheaper than $20.99. That was February 2026. 26 discounts in the 6 years on record. They run about 50 percent off, roughly 8 weeks apart. Today it is at full price. The last sale was about 5 weeks ago, and on this game's rhythm the next one tends to arrive within 8 weeks.
Value puts it in the top 42 percent of the games it competes with. It is pricier than 99 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 74 percent. Among the games that feel like it, X-Plane 11 ($29.99, scores 88) beats it on value, while it beats Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 ($69.99, scores 6).
The press liked it more than its buyers did, 91 against 79 percent.
This site sampled 800 of its Steam-purchase reviews; 38 were written by buyers who refunded it, sampled from reviews written March 2026 to September 2026. That is more refunded reviewers than 8 in 10 paid games this site has sampled to the same depth, and among the 2,864 games in its genre sampled this deeply, 401 have a larger share. In its first 30 days on sale, 5 of 330 sampled reviews came from refunders. Inside the two-hour refund window, 38 percent of the 1,812 reviews written there were positive, against 79 percent overall, and those are 3 percent of everything written about it.
The drop-off
63% start to <1% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
Players
3,245 players at peak in the last day.
The chart appears once this game has been counted more than once.Player counts via SteamSpy.
Cite this score
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Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) 40th Anniversary Edition scores 33/100 on the BANG Score (a skip). Length is not in our data, so the score is docked. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/1250410/microsoft-flight-simulator-2020-40th-anniversary-editionThe BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 12, price as of Sep 24.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.