Microsoft Flight Sim's second world update improves the USA
Yee-haw, pilots.
Yee-haw, pilots. Lasso the young'uns to their seats, because Microsoft Flight Simulator's next stop is the grand old US of A. The massive aviation sandbox just pushed its second world update, granting a number of states with improved resolutions, laying down some hand-crafted airports and 50 spruced-up points-of-interest to make your stateside tours an absolute treat.
Following the first World Update wot made Japan a little bit nicer to fly across, MSFS's second national overhaul aims to paint a United States landscape worthy of a Noah Caldwell-Gervais travelogue.
Like that Japan update, World Update 2 increases both the heightmap and aerial photography resolution of landscapes across the North American continent. It's not a sweeping change, mind. The USA is simply too massive for that. But it's broad enough that vast swathes of the country should now map a little more accurately to their real-world counterparts. More importantly, though, is the addition of dozens more landmarks to spot across the country.
50 "high-fidelity" POIs have been added to the game, from the Washington Monument and the White House to natural absurdities like Devil's Tower. Additionally, four airports have been completely done-over with hand-crafted models - Atlanta International, Dallas / Fort Worth International, New York Stewart International and Friday Harbor - with 48 others getting a less monumental (if still significant) increase in resolution.
The update also adds a few performance and stability updates, re-tunes a number of aircraft, and adjusts a number of bugs across everything from the game's UI to streetlight placement on small roads, all of which can be found over on the official patch notes.
They don't mention whether those giant spikes impaling Japan or Brazil's big hole have been fixed, mind. I, for one, hope they never are.