Microsoft Flight Simulator has been making the world a better place, a few countries at a time. The World Updates usually take a handful of countries from a particular region and flesh them out in terms of overall visuals, points of interests, additional airports, and other enhancements. Unfortunately, it seems that Germany, Austria, And Switzerland are going to have to wait for their turn as World Update Six has been delayed.
“In order to ensure that World Update 6 reaches a very high level of quality, we have decided to move back the release date to September 7th,” said developer Asobo Studio in a blog post. “We are very excited about this update as it features many enhancements to the region, including new aerials and elevation maps, new photogrammetry cities, 4 hand-crafted airports , nearly 100 POIs and new discovery flights, landing challenges, and bush trips. It’s a ton of content and we want to make sure that it will be great.”
As for the other changes and fixes coming with World Update Six, the developer will be working on navigation issues where the ATC asks you to change altitude unnecessarily, VFR map issues, and the addition of the new ARINC cycle 2108.
Additionally, the SR22 airplane has been revamped to better match the Pilot's Operating Handbook and Gyro Drift has also been balanced depending on the difficulty setting. An offscreen terrain pre-caching graphics settings has been added in order to avoid texture popping, however overall performance may be impacted. Maximum photogrammetry draw distance has also been increased, resulting in buildings being seen from farther away.
Late last month, we reported that Asobo’s work on the Xbox version of Flight Simulator resulted in an upgrade for the PC version as well. CEO Sebastian Wloch showed Microsoft Flight Simulator playing on ultra settings at 35fps on a development PC before the patch, and then after the patch that frame rate jumped to between 50fps and 60fps.
In our review for the game we said, “Microsoft Flight Simulator deserves to be played - but it shouldn't be considered essential. It's a unique experience, one that won't capture everyone in the same way, but you really do owe it to yourself to find your house, your partner's, your parent's, your favourite holiday destination, and just fly over. The world looks very different from thousands of feet in the air, and for now, Microsoft Flight Simulator is the only way I can get that irresistible point of view.” It got four stars out of five.