Microsoft Flight Simulator’s latest world update spruces up Italy and Malta

Not content with hosting the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest last weekend, Italy has now received a glam up in Microsoft Flight Simulator’s ninth world update. Cities in Italy and Malta are seeing their detail improved by photogrammetry, with the obvious choices of Rome, Milan and Venice joined by places such as Turin, Perugia and Paestum. Florence is a notable absence, but then Florence airport was recently released as paid DLC.

Microsoft say they’ve revamped 20 cities in Italy and Malta using “digital elevation modeling, aerial and satellite imagery, and triangulated irregular network (TIN) modeling”. They’ve also worked on zhuzhing the coastline (that’s the official, technical term, you know), which is a pretty major attraction of Italy and Malta. The update incorporates an airbus-load of new points of interest too, from the Pantheon to Saint Mark’s Basilica and Vatican City. Wave to the Pope everyone.

Four of the Italian region’s airports have also received a handcrafted digital makeover from art studio Gaya Simulations, Microsoft say. Those are Palermo in Sicily, Sondrio and Bolanzo in the southern Tyrol, and Marina di Campo on the island of Elba. Another 100 were improved by flight sim scenery specialists Orbx. Mission developers Perfect Flight have created some new activities for the update, including bush trips around Sardinia and Sicily, discovery flights over Venice, Rome and Florence, and landing challenges in some strong wind.

The Italian world update is free so you can take off and start flying over Turin and Venice whenever you like, as long as you’re patched up to version 1.25.9.0. Check the Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.25.9.0 release notes for full details about everything that’s changed in the update.