About 120 miles off the coast of Costa Rica, there’s a cluster of islands with a rather ominous local name: Las Cinco Muertes. The five deaths. It sounds like the kind of place you’d find in a novel, which is more or less accurate, because it’s also the setting for Jurassic Park. And for the past several months, you’ve been able to fly there in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
We covered Orbx’s Jurassic World: Archipelago when it was first announced back in August, and the reception since launch has been strong. More recently, Pimax reached out and invited us to experience the add-on through their Crystal Super headset as part of their Jurassic World bundle, which pairs a qualifying headset with a copy of the add-on included.
It turns out the flat-screen experience and the VR experience are very different things, and here that difference is more impactful than ever.
What you’re actually flying into
For those who haven’t picked it up yet: Jurassic World: Archipelago is an officially licensed product, developed by Orbx in collaboration with Universal Products & Experiences. It’s set just before the events of the 2015 Jurassic World film, at a moment when the park is operational but not everything is under control. The full roster of islands covers Isla Nublar and the five islands of the Cinco Muertes Archipelago: Isla Sorna, Isla Matanceros, Isla Muerta, Isla Tacaño, and Isla Pena, with nine airfields and twelve helipads across the islands. Juan Santamaría International Airport on the Costa Rica mainland serves as your real-world departure point.
The dinosaur roster includes Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Dimorphodon, Gallimimus, Mosasaurus, Pteranodon, Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptor, and Indominus rex. They roam, they make noise, and in MSFS 2024 you can get out of your aircraft and walk up to them, which is where things get interesting.
The three rescue missions built for MSFS 2024 are worth highlighting specifically. They’re not afterthoughts. One puts you on approach to a storm-damaged airstrip on Isla Sorna with a rescue team on the ground, a T-Rex in the vicinity, and confirmed Velociraptor sightings in the tall grass nearby.
The VR difference
On a flat screen, this is a well-crafted and genuinely unusual add-on. In VR, you are impacted by a whole new dimension: scale.
You can read that an Apatosaurus is large. Seeing one on a monitor communicates that in a general way. Standing next to one in VR and having to tilt your head straight up to find its face is a different experience. The same applies to the Mosasaurus surfacing in the lagoon grandstand area, and to the T-Rex encounter during the rescue mission, which is genuinely frightening even though you know you’re in a sim. But inside a headset with the visual fidelity of a Crystal Super, for example, your mind starts to trick you!
A helicopter is the right vehicle for this. Low, maneuverable, with full 360-degree visibility in VR. Flying between the islands at low altitude with the Jurassic Park score on your playlist is a must. Strange, but memorable!
The on-foot exploration is absolutely worth the detour. Landing somewhere, stepping out, and walking into the park on Isla Nublar, through the visitor center, past the egg hatchery, toward the Mosasaurus lagoon, with the full scale of everything, is a reminder of why detailed interiors matter in flight simulation at all. It’s the same argument as a meticulously modelled terminal building at a payware airport: you might only pass through it once, but the care put into it is felt. The difference here is that instead of gate signage and check-in desks, you get dinosaur eggs, massive cages, and a lagoon with something very large living in it.
Pricing and bundles
Pimax and Orbx have partnered to offer a bundle deal pairing qualifying headsets with a copy of Jurassic World: Archipelago included. Details are on the Pimax site, and our discount code msfsaddons gets you an extra 2% off any headset purchase. If you make purchase through this link, we earn a commission at no extra cost to you, which helps fuel our daily mission of bringing you the latest in the MSFS world.
