Back in November 2020, HEXUS reported that the next big content update for Microsoft Flight Simulator, World Update 3, would be arriving early in 2021. Just ahead of the weekend MSFS support Tweeted that World Update 3 is undergoing its "final polish phase and is now locked in for release on Tuesday, 16th February". Moreover, this UK-centric update was described as "massive" by the developers.
Asobo Studio is putting the finishing touches to World Update 3, and for a brief teaser of the content in video form you can look at the recent developer Q&A session – skip forward to 18mins 15 sec for the section about the UK update.
Flying over the UK later in the week with thus be potentially a much richer experience. Asobo is adding the following major data updates:
- 70+ new points of interest
- London, Cambridge, Oxford, Birmingham, and Bristol will be photogrammetry enhanced,
- Five new airports are features including Manchester Barton, Liverpool EEGP, and Land's End,
- There are improvements to 85 area airports,
- Better elevation data across the UK,
- And the game gets some new landing challenges.
Previous major World Updates that have arrived in MSFS were the Japan focussed update and the USA one from last time. World Update 4 is heading to France, and should be released late March. The sim has turned out to be a hit with over a million players on Game Pass for PC alone. It is a demanding title, not just for the processing power to drive multiple high resolution screens and VR, but also in its storage use.
