Microsoft Flight Simulator has gradually seen more detail added to its comprehensive world map – sure, you could fly anywhere when it launched, but developer Asobo Studio has been filling in that massive world map with interesting details since then. The latest patch, World Update II, adds a bevy of newly detailed locations to the United States, as well as some welcome fixes and tweaks.
World Update II updates elevation maps and a significant amount of aerial imagery for Flight Simulator’s rendition of the US. If you’ve ever flown Delta, you’ll be pleased to learn that Atlanta International Airport has been updated, along with Friday Harbor on Washington State’s San Juan Island, Dallas/Fort Worth International, and New York Stewart International.
There’s a host of points of interest updates included in this patch, which are listed below. A couple notable sites you might like to visit include the gigantic Mackinac suspension bridge that connects greater Michigan to its upper peninsula; Fort Knox and the Treasury Department’s gold repository in Kentucky, and the massive Hoover Dam, which you may remember from climactic scene of Fallout: New Vegas.
I’ll be keen to check out the updated version of Niagara Falls, which were awfully confusing looking when Flight Simulator first came out.
The patch also makes several performance enhancements, improves the general handling and flight model for all planes, fixes a “fuel consumption issue” on the Boeing 747-8 and Airbus A320neo airliners, and several other areas – which you can read all about over at the official site.
Here’s the list of newly enhanced landmarks:
- Chimney Rock
- Crazy Horse Memorial
- Pilgrim Monument, Provincetown MA
- Fort Jefferson
- Washington Monument, Washington DC
- Capitol, Washington DC
- White House, Washington DC
- Wright Brothers National Memorial
- Mount Rushmore
- Biltmore Estate
- Devils Tower
- New River Gorge Bridge
- United States National Arboretum
- Bixby Creek Bridge
- Chesapeake Bay Bridge
- Sunshine Skyway Bridge
- Mackinac Bridge
- Navajo Bridge
- Astoria-Megler Bridge
- U.S. Grant Bridge
- Lowry Avenue Bridge
- Lewis and Clark Bridge
- The Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge
- Fort Knox
- Monument Rocks National Natural
- Coronado Heights Castle
- Ellis County Courthouse
- Monument Valley
- Yosemite El Capitan
- Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde, Colorado
- Shiprock, New Mexico
- Haystack Rock at Canon, Oregon
- Half Dome, Yosemite
- Dworshak Dam
- Hoover Dam
- Oroville Dam
- Alcatraz (water tower and lighthouse only)
- Fort McHenry, Baltimore
- Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls
- Glen Canyon Dam
- Las Vegas Strip (Night)
- Confederation Bridge
- Johnson Space Center Houston (visitor’s center)
- Kennedy Space Center Florida (visitors center)
- Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (memorial site)
- Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory
- Gulf of Mexico, Oil Rigs
- Airport Graveyard, Tucson
Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of the best simulation games you can play on PC – but there are plenty more. Check the link to read about some of our other favourites.