A new update focusing on selected French cities is now available.
Developed by French studio Asobo on behalf of publisher Microsoft, Flight Simulator (2020) was also, and above all, an opportunity to rediscover a franchise that its owner had somewhat abandoned. The release of Flight Simulator in August 2020 marked the end of a many-year hiatus for flight simulation fans, and the return to the fore of one of its most brilliant flagships. And since good things come in threes, the Bordeaux-based studio didn't botch the comeback, taking full advantage of Microsoft's considerable resources to reproduce a world of prodigious detail. At the time of the game's release, over two petabytes of data were exploited by the developers, who used photogrammetry to represent numerous cities and airports around the world as accurately as possible.
Week after week, month after month, Asobo Studio has further enriched the game's content with a series of " world updates " designed to focus on specific parts of the world. Alas, despite the studio's French origins, the Hexagone was not particularly honored, at least not in its complex diversity. We had to wait for the " France and Benelux " update to benefit from a few additions, but Paris was the only additional French city to benefit from photogrammetry, and while some must-see monuments (the Eiffel Tower, the Château de Chenonceau, the Parc des Princes and the Millau Viaduct) made their debut, the choice of others (Fort Boyard) seemed more questionable. Meanwhile, budding pilots were able to take advantage of numerous cities in Germany (Bielefeld, Brunswick, Frankfurt am Main, Constance, Wuppertal), Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, Cairns, Darwin, Villeville, Mackay, Bunbury), Canada (Halifax, Sherbrooke, Abbotsford, Saskatoon, Toronto, Montreal, Regina, Calgary, Victoria, St. Catharines, Laval, Vancouver). St. Catharines, Laval, Vancouver) or Iberia (Lisbon, Barreiro, Malaga, Bilbao, Cascais, Coimbra).
Fortunately, things are progressing nicely today with the roll-out of an update called City Update II: France, which logically focuses on certain French cities. It is now possible to fly over France's largest Gothic cathedral (Amiens), the Château des Ducs de Bretagne or Tour Bretagne (Nantes), the Château des Ducs d'Anjou (Angers), the Arènes de Nîmes or the Cathedral Notre-Dame de Reims. Asobo Studio also took on the task of reproducing Paris-Le Bourget airport as faithfully as possible. Finally, French aviation takes center stage with the release of an iconic aircraft, one of the largest seaplanes ever built, the Latécoère Model 631, which took to the skies for the first time on November 4, 1942. Please note, however, that while City Update II: France is available free of charge, you'll need to pay $14.99 to purchase the Latécoère Model 631.
