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Here are 9 landmarks you have to see in Microsoft Flight Simulator
Not many games can give you a pilots-eye view of the world, so get exploring
Microsoft Flight Simulator is back. After a ridiculous almost fifteen year hiatus, the long-running aviation franchise (which, if you were wondering, has been around longer than Microsoft Windows itself) has been rebooted by French developer Asobo. And if you missed the big headline features, it features the whole world. Yep – every single portion of our beautiful blue space orb.
Using a wonderful concoction of satellite data, mapping technology and AI learning tools, Asobo has managed to create a world unlike any other in video games – huge, detailed, atmospheric and borderline photorealistic. But with such a vast array of places to go, you’ll likely get Netflix Syndrome and become paralysed by choice. So here’s some inspiration to get you flying.
Christ the Redeemer
No fun captions here, just enjoy the majesty
© Microsoft
Flying over Rio for the first time you really get a sense of how massive the city is, how incredible the landscape’s topography is, but also how actually quite small the Christ the Redeemer statue is. All the Google images of the statue make it out to be massive. And sure, it’s pretty big. But you’ll be surprised how small it is, up there on a huge peak. Still – it makes for some astounding photos.
The Hollywood Sign
Here's the Hollywood sign
© Microsoft
There are dozens of cool sights to see in Los Angeles, but of course, the Hollywood sign is one of the coolest. You can just about spot it on the hill, obscured slightly by the brilliant Californian sunset. It feels pretty amazing flying over the home of movie entertainment and show business – especially seeing all the incredible houses in the Hollywood hills. You also get a sobering sense of how vastly sprawling Los Angeles is, and how distant Hollywood feels from the towering skyscrapers of downtown LA.
Mount Fuji
Mount Fuji
© Microsoft
To get to Fuji you need to head out from Shizuoka airport on Japan’s east coast. It’s not far from Tokyo. Once in the air just look around – you’ll soon spot Fuji in the distance. It’s an absolutely astonishingly pretty mountain, whether you see it during the morning with scattered clouds, or in the midst of a snowstorm, where the mountain’s peak can be seen just strutting out from above the white blanket of fluff.
The Pyramids of Giza
Giza Pyramids
© Microsoft
No whistle-stop sightseeing tour of the world is complete without a visit to one of humanity’s most fascinating man-made landmarks. The pyramid complexes in Egypt are numerous, but it’s these three that are the most incredible to fly over. You get a sense of how monolithic they are, pointing out above the desert sands, but also can see how close the nearby towns and villages have set up shop around them. It must be weird, waking up every morning with the pyramids in view outside your window, don’t you think?
Manhattan
The urban sprawl of Manhattan
© Microsoft
Another sprawling cityscape that’s hard to comprehend, the city of Manhattan and its surrounding locales might not have quite the vast spread of Los Angeles, but what it lacks in sheer scale it more than makes up for with its dramatic skyline. New York looks particularly stunning in Flight Simulator, and you can spot iconic landmarks; from the MetLife building, to the One World Trade Center, to the Empire State, to the Statue of Liberty, and the vast open space of Central Perk in the northern portion of the city. Approach on a morning and you’ll see the millions of lights still on – it’s wonderful.
Uluru
Miles from everything, here's Uluru
© Microsoft
Flight Simulator is very good at making you feel small. But few landscapes will make you appreciate that fact as well as the Australian outback, which stretches on for hundreds of miles in every direction. Flat, barren, barely inhabited by humankind. There are very few places like it in the world – especially not ones with iconic and unforgettable landmarks like Uluru. It’s hard to really convey just how remote (several hours’ flight from anywhere built-up) big this rock really is, but this photo shot from 4,000 feet above the ground, might help.
The Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon might not be totally accurate, but it's still impressive
© Microsoft
Another incredible and iconic part of nature – the Grand Canyon causes a little bit of trouble with the game’s AI scanning technology and looks a bit weird in some spots, but overall is a daunting sight to behold. This gigantic crack in the Earth’s surface really strikes you from the air.
Dubai
The man-made palm tree is... ridiculous
© Microsoft
The man-made modern Vegas that is Dubai. It’s a wondrous sight to behold from the skies, especially as the sun dips below the horizon and casts a warm purple and reddish hue across the desert. A lot of the city’s most iconic landmarks are intact here, including the enormous Burj Khalifa – which you see piercing the sky from several miles away – and Atlantis hotel, which sits out in the bay on the manmade palm. What a ridiculous place.
London
The Shard, after some rain. Classic London
© Microsoft
There she is, beautiful Blighty. You can fully customise the weather in Flight Sim, in real-time, as well as using Live weather from satellite data across the globe. In this shot I felt it appropriate to coat the entire city in an overcast post-rain mist, with the sun barely getting through the clouds. It’s London as I know it from January and February, before we were consigned to our houses and the heatwave kicked in.
