It sure looks like Microsoft Flight Simulator evicted the Queen
I fail to see the problem here.
Microsoft Flight Simulator promises an entire world. It's a stunning feat, one the game largely succeeds at, but it's understandably flubbed a few locations here and there. At least, that's the most reasonable explanation for why the global flyover has replaced Buckingham Palace with a brutal grey apartment complex - assuming, of course, the folks at Asobo and Microsoft haven't just let slip a peek at their anti-monarchist politics.
Taking a flight through Flight Sim's facsimile of London, the BBC discovered a few notable oddities - including the radical act of replacing the Queen's 775-room residence into a massive block of (presumably) affordable housing.
My, what an interesting idea...
The Queen's crib isn't the only landmark that's notably missing from MSFS's London. Several bridges have found themselves submerged under the Thames, while the Gherkin is absent from the city's skyline. Bringing the oddities closer to home, one reply suggests that - as with Buckingham - Edinburgh Castle has been similarly gentrified into residential blocks. Given the rate the rest of town's been supplanted by student flats, Microsoft might just be pre-empting reality there.
Sydney Harbour Bridge, meanwhile, hasn't been replaced so much as outright removed. While it may just be that dodgy procgen has warped or deleted these landmarks, some have suggested that in the Bridge's case, stingy behaviour from the structure's rights owners have kept it from appearing in the sim.
These slips come with the territory of pulling the entire planet out of Bing Maps - and if you want an aerial view of some stunning photorealistic cities, Ollie's compiled a handy list of Flight Sim's most detailed urban sprawls. If you do want your capitol right n' proper, though, Orbx have compiled a third-party pack of London landmarks to download for £6.01/€6.66/$7.95.