With the stunning World Update VII: Australia available now, we sit down with Jorg Neuman, Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, to talk about its creation and building a living world to explore.

A snippet.

With new photogrammetry, hand-crafted locales, and cities given a fresh coat of digital paint, each World Update has been met with open arms. Which makes the latest, World Update VII: Australia - something special for local Flight Sim fans. It’s a process that involves collaborating with many people.

“Internet research only gets you so far,” Jorg Neuman explains. “And given that Australia is pretty far away, we needed partners. One company we teamed up with was Orbx, who are a Flight Simulator Add-On developer. They’re in Melbourne and they know the country better than someone like me. Obviously we talked to Microsoft in Australia too, and they gave us a list. If you go by popularity or only speak to a few people you end up with the big population centres, so we reach out.”

“Typically we end up with 500 things we want to add and we whittle it down to about a hundred things or so,” Jorg Neuman explains. “When you get to like the last 50 to cut though, it becomes difficult.” As per the trailer for the Australia update, it includes a number of iconic landmarks, from Uluru to The Twelve Apostles, and Three Sisters to name a few.

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