Microsoft Flight Simulator’s Cityscape Sydney Add-On Gets Gorgeous Trailer

Today Microsoft Flight Simulator third-party add-on developer Orbx revealed a trailer for its upcoming Cityscape Sydney package.

The add-on includes over 100 custom points of interest, custom aerial imagery for the ground, water mask, and more.

You can check out the video below, showing the improvements over the default scenery.

You can also read an official description from Orbx’s store page.

Orbx is proud to return to our roots with our very first Australian product for Microsoft Flight Simulator – Cityscape Sydney! Over nine months in development, Cityscape Sydney is an enormous project that pushes the boundaries of what is possible with the current MSFS SDK.

Acclaimed developer Frank Schnibben (Cityscape Honolulu, Melbourne Cityscape for AUv2) has brought to life Australia’s largest city with his debut MSFS scenery with the assistance of our in-house team. A complete cityscape, the scenery captures the feel and energy of the harbourside capital, with thousands of details and features across the entire metropolitan area.

Over 100 custom points of interest have been faithfully recreated, including the city’s tallest skyscrapers, well-known icons, sports stadiums, and bridges. Whilst most of these have been created with a high level of detail that prioritizes high optimization and unique PBR texture work, we have created a few ultra-high-detail “hero assets” – models that rival airport terminals in terms of detail – perfect for exploring right up close. You can see this in action with our incredibly detailed Sydney Harbour Bridge – the centerpiece of this scenery.

Custom aerial imagery replaces the default Bing ortho for the inner suburbs, airport, and CBD of Sydney. We made the decision to use our own ortho as it is a vast improvement over the default; fidelity, color quality, source resolution, and tonality, as well as Frank’s hand-editing, bring this feature to life. Additionally, water color and detailing is greatly improved; the world-famous beaches of Bondi and Coogee look far more realistic and vibrant. Watermasks in the central parts of the scenery have been totally replaced, more accurately depicting coastlines.

Frank has also totally replaced over 28,000 primary buildings with his own custom-designed models in complete 4k PBR. This vastly improves the type, footprint height, and roof types of the most standout towers, residential blocks, and commercial buildings not covered as points of interest. These improvements extend far beyond the primary coverage zone – major suburban centers such as Parramatta, Chatswood, and dozens more have been replaced. Lastly, Port Botany next to Sydney Airport has seen a major overhaul, with detailing and improvements to this landmark that is visible on all flights into and out of the airport.

If you want to learn more about Microsoft Flight Simulator, you can check out our review that will tell you everything you need to know about Asobo Studio’s new and groundbreaking game.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is already available for Windows 10 and Steam. An Xbox version is also planned for the future but has no release date for now.

You can also check out our growing guide wiki that includes more information that can help you get started in the game.