Microsoft Flight Simulator's GOTY edition and Reno Air Races DLC are out now
New cities, airports, planes and more
Microsoft Flight Simulator's Game Of The Year edition is out now, bringing with it Update VII and the latest collection of new airports, planes, and prettier cities. It also adds some new features, including an improved weather system, new tutorials and new missions.
Reno Air Races, the game's first expansion pack, is also out today.
The GOTY edition bundles together all the updates released thus far, but let's focus on what's new. There are 8 new handcrafted airports across Europe, 545 (!) presumably not-handcrafted airports across the United States, and five new aircraft including the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, the first military jet added to the game.
Most exciting to me, a Flight Simulator tourist, is the new photogrammetry cities. The newly accurate replications of real places includes: Helsinki in Finland; Freiburg in Germany; Brighton, Derby, Eastbourne, Newcastle and Nottingham in England; Vers-Pont-Du-Gard, Chambord and Port-Vendres in France; and Utrecht in the Netherlands. As someone who lives in Brighton, I look forward to crashing into my house, or to that takeout place that sent me a bad pizza one time.
You can read more about the update over at the Flight Simulator blog, including its many fixes.
The Reno Air Races expansion interests me a lot less. It's the first paid DLC for the game, and it adds 40 new, licensed planes designed for sky races. The full package costs a whopping $60, although you can get four planes to race in online multiplayer for the smaller $20. You can also learn more about the DLC in this MSFS blog post.
I don't mind a high price for an also highly accurate rendering of a niche passion. This will absolutely be some people's thing, and a lot of effort has evidently gone in to making it, so fair enough. Me, I just want to crash into businesses I feel have slighted me in Brighton.