Pilots in Microsoft Flight Simulator will have quite a few options when it comes to landings. The ambitious flight sim will feature every airport in the world, according to the latest episode of the Feature Discovery Series, and 37,000 of those airports were manually designed to look just like their real-world counterparts.
It's quite the leap from its predecessor's still considerable 24,000 airports, and you'll be able to touch down on grassy landing strips in the middle of nowhere, as well as desert airfields and massive international airports next to cities. Presumably, however, you won't be parking something the size of an A380 on a tiny strip of tarmac in the Australian outback.
For the 37,000 airports which got manual design work, the team made yet another creation tool, and used resources like Bing Maps, airport databases and aerial photos. The level of detail is pretty astounding, with everything from the roads used for ground and air vehicles to the markings on the airstrip being recreated. You'll even spot working windsocks.
Airports will be a bit livelier than they were in the previous game. You'll see service vehicles driving around, car parks filling up and workers scurrying between different locations. You're probably not going to pay much attention to them, but Asobo Studio is almost fanatically devoted to making its simulation realistic.
The team also published a new development update, and added March and April to the roadmap. In March, we'll get two more episodes of the Feature Discovery Series, and in April we'll get an update on the pre-release build timeline.
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