For many of 2026, the Metropolis Updates collection has saved its concentrate on america, from California back in January to the Midwest and Chicago in June. Metropolis Replace 16 modifications course and heads again to Europe, and it palms one of many continent’s favourite low-and-slow flying locations a launch of its personal. Italy is out right now, free for house owners of each Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, and the reveal arrived from Gamescom in Cologne, the place the MSFS workforce traded its regular Weekly Briefing for the present flooring this week.
The timing isn’t any shock. When Microsoft laid out its 2026 roadmap earlier this year, August was penciled in for Metropolis Replace 16, so this arrives proper on schedule. The MSFS workforce describes the discharge as a set of 9 city areas unfold throughout Italy, from the far north all the way down to the southern tip, and out to the islands of Sardinia and Sicily. They’re: Bolzano, Udine, Trieste, Rimini, Genoa, Pisa, Cagliari, Reggio di Calabria, and Messina.
As with the remainder of the collection, the work makes use of contemporary aerial imagery, up to date elevation knowledge, and high-fidelity TIN (triangulated irregular community) floor texturing to rebuild how these locations look from the air.
A tour from the Dolomites to Sicily
The reveal video runs by means of an extended record of stops than 9, which inserts how these updates are likely to work, since named areas cluster right into a smaller set of broader areas. Up north, the tour opens round South Tyrol with Bolzano, then strikes by means of Friuli-Venezia Giulia by the use of Udine, Trieste, and neighboring Muggia. It continues down the Adriatic coast to Rimini in Emilia-Romagna, over to Pisa in Tuscany, and throughout to Genoa on the Ligurian coast. The southern leg takes in Cagliari on Sardinia, then Scilla, Reggio di Calabria, and Messina across the slender channel that separates the Italian mainland from Sicily.
A few the showcased spots stretch the “Italy” label somewhat, in a great way. The Metropolis of San Marino sits inside Italy however is its personal sovereign microstate, one of many oldest republics on this planet. The video additionally spends time on surroundings relatively than cityscapes in locations, with the Three Peaks of Lavaredo within the Dolomites and Mount Etna, Europe’s most lively volcano, each within the body.
For anybody monitoring the collection, Italy is a notable entry as a result of it hasn’t had a Metropolis Replace of its personal earlier than. European cities have proven up in earlier releases, from Porto, Madrid, and Barcelona cross in City Update 7 to Germany in City Update 12 and the Netherlands and Belgium in City Update 14, however Italy had sat on the sidelines till now. The nine-area depend additionally strains up with current type. Metropolis Replace 15 shipped with eight areas of curiosity and Metropolis Replace 14 with ten, so Microsoft is holding a reasonably regular scope from one launch to the subsequent.
The replace is free for everybody who owns Microsoft Flight Simulator, on both the 2020 or 2024 model. To seize it, make sure that your sim is on the most recent model, then open the in-sim Market and obtain the replace.