The latest update has been released for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which invites you to fly over a collection of European cities.
The update, called City Update V: European Cities I (6-3 overall), adds five new city centers. These are the Dutch The Hague, the Belgian Brussels, the Croatian Zagreb, the Spanish Cadiz and Kosice in Slovakia.
To be clear, all of these cities were already present in Flight Simulator thanks to its stunning 1:1 model of the entire planet. But the basic version used satellite data and procedural generation that only conveyed general outlines, with many strange anomalies upon closer inspection.
In contrast, Microsoft’s cities updated in these updates are much more geographically accurate. They were created by Microsoft together with Bing Maps and Vexcel, a company specializing in aerial photography. As stated in the announcement on the Microsoft Flight Sim website, “each city has been recreated with the highest visual fidelity using the latest geodata and TIN surface modeling.”
As the name suggests, this is not the first batch of cities to receive photogrammetric detailing. The first City Update update was dedicated to German cities, updating Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Bonn and Cologne. Other updates reworked metropolitan areas in France, Texas and Western Europe.
In addition to cities, Microsoft has also added a number of new aircraft.
The next part of Flight Simulator is coming out next year called Flight Simulator 2024 and will add many new missions such as mountain rescue and aerobatics.
