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.
