Flight Attendant Simulator: Onboard Tasks Review (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 & Switch)

I’d be lying if I said that I was floating on cloud nine with Flight Attendant Simulator. I’d also be lying if I told you that I was beaming with enthusiasm over the mere thought of being able to soar back and forth between alien exiles and shoddy luggage holds. To tell you the truth, at no point did I ever have any motive to accrue frequent flyer miles in The Midnight’s Onboard Tasks. I had an itch, and I wanted to see if it could be scratched.

Initially, I figured, if I could stomach the turbulence and take a good ol’ peek behind the fabric to see what really took place between in-flight microwave meals on a commercial flight, then I could contently walk away with a vague sense of enlightenment. I wanted to unmask the secrets that loomed beyond the curtain, and I wanted to see if the job of a flight attendant had more to offer than trolley work and customer service. Yet, it never offered me a reason to believe otherwise; it was dull, routine work that, frankly, left me feeling underwhelmed and eager for an abrupt landing.

While Flight Attendant Simulator: Onboard Tasks isn’t a structurally inept game, it is one that, in all seriousness, is about as soulless and as barebones as chore core simulation games come. With absolutely no wriggle room available for you to stretch your legs between long haul flights and a dull gameplay routine that’s about as entertaining as it sounds on paper, you don’t have a brilliantly crafted experience here, but a paper thin cash grab that doesn’t know how to pilot its own vessel. And if you think this all sounds a little too harsh, then just you wait. Regrettably, there’s more turbulence here than there is lavish luggage. Buckle in, people — the seatbelt sign is officially on.

As the title implies, Flight Attendant Simulator is all about ferrying passengers across the open skies in tight tin cans. Like a budget airline, the passengers are quite simply crammed into the plane like motionless sardines, devoid of emotion or any form of personality that can be easily analyzed, and the flight attendants are given the opportunity to complete routine jobs. And, for the most part, that’s all that you’re doing here: loading luggage into the overhead lockers, aiding incompetent passengers with their seatbelts, and serving medical supplies, books, and meals for three or four minutes at a time.

The game itself has four chapters, with each chapter having its own aircraft, flight count, and passengers. The job, however, remains the same across each flight, with each journey consisting of three phases: takeoff, the journey itself, and the landing. Between each of the three phases you have a rather simple task: locate question mark blimps that hover over passengers’ heads, and complete the request. In most cases, you either need to collect an item from a locker and then return it. Occasionally, you have trash to remove, a small contained fire to extinguish, or an impatient passenger to soothe. But, to tell you the truth, none of this really matters here, as you earn your post-flight paycheck regardless of how much legwork you put in.

Speaking of paychecks, you do have an opportunity to spend your post-journey cash on various cosmetics—a new hairstyle, for example. But, frankly, none of this matters, either, given that Flight Attendant Simulator is a first-person game, and that it doesn’t require you to possess greater assets in order to progress through the campaign. It’s a pointless addition, if anything. You do as much as you’re willing to offer, and then you splurge your paycheck on apparel that, well, has no bearing whatsoever. The next flight commences, and you return to your post to repeat the same tasks.

To state the obvious, Flight Attendant Simulator is a simulation game that you can quite easily experience in its entirety in the first five minutes. Given that the tasks rarely change and that the campaign is about as dull and as predictable as one might imagine it to be, there really isn’t a lot for you to write home about here. Initially, it provides a gimmick—a poor excuse to keep you prancing around the aisles for a short while. However, after the second or third flight, it quickly runs out of content to drip feed you. The turbulence takes hold, and the journey begins to take a downward spiral towards a territory where monotony prevails.

As I said, the characters (as well as the graphics, in general) are atrocious here. In some cases, I could turn a blind eye to the visual imperfections—the blank facial expressions; the blown-out features; and the stiff limbs, to list just a handful. But, it didn’t take all that long for the disappointment to sink in. The same jobs would appear, and the same cardboard cutout passengers would board the plane. The cycle would persist, and I, being at the heart of it all, would spend the duration of each flight wishing for a catastrophic engine failure light to illuminate on the dashboard.

Given that this is a rather niche game, I’d say that there is still a slight chance that some aviation fans will find something to enjoy here. For me, though, I couldn’t think of a worse way to spend an hour or two. It’s laughably bad—terrifying, even, given the visuals and the depictions of the characters. Sadly, though, as comical as it may be, it just isn’t a good simulation game. A passable one, perhaps, but not one that I’d confidently recommend to a frequent flyer who’s looking for some extra mileage in the digital realm.

Verdict

Flight Attendant Simulator: Onboard Tasks shoots for the skies and ultimately takes a drastic nosedive into the ocean as a short haul expedition that, frankly, has about as much soul and depth as a plastic bag in a wind turbine. With a lack of challenges to complete, a predictable campaign with no perks, and a paycheck system that adds absolutely no weight to the journey whatsoever, The Midnight’s budget airline debut falls short in just about every aspect conceivable, thus making it an unlikely choice for those who are looking to find and spread their wings.