Flight Unlimited II is a 1997 flight simulator video game developed by Looking Glass Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. The player controls one of five planes in the airspace of the San Francisco Bay Area, which is shared with up to 600 artificially intelligent aircraft directed by real-time air traffic control. The game eschews the aerobatics focus of its predecessor, Flight Unlimited, in favor of general civilian aviation. As such, new physics code and an engine were developed, the former because the programmer of Flight Unlimiteds computational fluid dynamics system, Seamus Blackley, had left the company.
The team sought to create an immersive world for the player and to compete with the Microsoft Flight Simulator series. Commercially, Flight Unlimited II performed well enough to recoup its development costs. Critics lauded the game's graphics and simulated airspace, and several praised its physics. However, some considered the game to be inferior to Microsoft Flight Simulator 98. Following the completion of Flight Unlimited II, its team split up to develop Flight Unlimited III (1999) and Flight Combat (later Jane's Attack Squadron) simultaneously. Both projects were troubled, and they contributed to the closure of Looking Glass in May 2000.
Gameplay
left|thumbnail|250px|alt=The top half of the image is the view out of a rain-specked airplane windshield, through which a coastline is visible. The bottom half features numerous flight instruments, such as an altimeter and a variometer.|The player flies a [[Cessna 172 in IFR mode in the rain.]]
Flight Unlimited II is a flight simulator video game: its gameplay is a simulation of piloting real-world planes. The game's six lessons detail such maneuvers as takeoffs and taxiing. However, a new manager at Looking Glass Studios demanded that Blackley instead design a direct sequel to Flight Unlimited. Blackley refused and was fired, leaving the company in late 1995. Constantine Hantzopoulos became the lead designer and project leader of the fourteen-member Flight Unlimited II team. The team eschewed the aerobatics focus of their previous game in favor of general civilian aviation, in order to compete with the Microsoft Flight Simulator series. Looking Glass announced the game on December 18, 1996. It was slated to include 6 planes, 45 airports and 8,500 square miles of terrain from the San Francisco Bay Area. The Bay Area was chosen because of its varied landscape and numerous airports. In January 1997, Eidos Interactive partnered with Looking Glass to provide the game's marketing and distribution.
thumb|right|alt=A line of five golden, computer-generated teapots recedes into the distance on a checkerboard floor. The closest teapot is clearly visible, but the other four are increasingly obscured by a gray fog.|A [[distance fog algorithm (like the one demonstrated above) had been used to improve the frame rate of Flight Unlimited, but the ZOAR renderer developed for Flight Unlimited II made this unnecessary.
The team's goal was to create the "best, most realistic civilian flight simulator", Radio communications between ATCs, AI planes and the player occur in real-time: a "sophisticated audio splicing system" gathers pre-recorded voice fragments into contextually appropriate sentences. At the show, the team detailed early plans to include missions. The game was well received, The merger came amid financial difficulties; Looking Glass's Tim Stellmach and Paul Neurath described the merger as amicable, and the former noted that "through the whole deal everyone was really psyched about both The Dark Project and Flight Unlimited II".