The latest World Update is available now for free for Microsoft Flight Simulator players, adding many graphical improvements for the Australia region.
The previous update — World Update VI — arrived back in September and added a tonne of new landmarks in Europe, focusing on Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Now, with World Update VII, the focus is on Australia. You can view footage of the new additions in the trailer above, which looks absolutely stunning.
Now, four Australian airports feature proper handcrafted models and a further 100 have high-resolution detail, thanks to Melbourne-based company Orbx Simulation Systems.
Optional downloadable content, available via the in-game marketplace, will add photogrammetry data for 10 Australian cities and towns — Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, Cairns, Darwin, Townsville, Mackay and Bunbury. Interestingly, this list includes some fairly small Australian towns, while also notably not including Canberra, the nation’s capital.
There’s also now over 90 hand-crafted points of interest across Australia, including major stadiums, public landmarks and natural environments. You can view the full list here.
Back when Flight Simulator launched, the Australia cities looked woefully unfinished, thanks to the lack of photgrammetric data. Iconic locations such as the Sydney Harbour were missing the Harbour Bridge (replaced instead with a completely flat auto-generated bridge) and the Sydney Opera House. This has all been rectified now, with this new update allowing you to take in the Australian cities properly, in all their glory — except Canberra (but take it from me, you’re not missing much there…).
The update also adds a bunch of new Australia-based activities. You can read more details on the entire update over on the release notes page.
If you’re playing in VR, you’ll be happy to know that the game also now supports VR controllers as well, which was added in an update last year.
Will you be putting on your headset and flying over Flight Simulator’s updated Australian cities? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
