Talking about the Nordic update with Flight Simulator boss Jorg Neumann

Ahead of the big Nordic update (Microsoft Flight Simulator World Update 15: Nordics & Greenland), I booked a video meeting with Flight Simulator bigwig Jorg Neumann who was more than happy to talk through a bunch of details that we can expect. Check out the interview in full below:

I would first like to take the opportunity to thank you for a brilliant game and just note that I have never been particularly interested in either flights or aeroplanes, but have used Flight Simulator 2020 as a kind of meditation when I just disconnect from all the noise and stress and just relax up there, among the clouds. And no other modern game can offer that to me.

Thank you very much! Great to hear and thank you for your time on it. What you're telling us is something we hear from millions of our returning players all the time and it's obviously something we're proud of. Because, of course, we knew somewhere before we released Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 that the hardcore gamers who love flying and aeroplanes would spend time in the experience we created, but we didn't know in the same breath what it would be like for all the "flight tourists" who have proven to come back on a regular basis, to relax and switch off from the outside world - as you say. We recently talked about this internally and with figures pointing to nine million players, we reckon we have attracted four times more than our initial calculations and hopes.

With this new Nordic update, I understand that you have spent a lot of time improving the Swedish cities of Visby, Malmö, Gothenburg and Linköping. Could you tell us a bit about your reasoning when choosing which cities to polish?

There are several different parameters here and a big part of the process of choosing which cities to upgrade is about accessibility and condition. We use external companies that fly over and photograph these places for us and there are lots of details and conditions in terms of weather and sunlight, season and accessibility. Of course, we also listen to the players' wishes.

Stockholm, our capital city, is missing from this list... Why is that?

We know that many players are disappointed about this and believe me when I say that we are just as disappointed, but this is only because the Swedish government has taken a lot of time to approve the aerial images and initially demanded that we delete certain areas. Everything has been resolved now, however, and Stockholm will be released as a separate update in a few weeks. A little delayed, but it will happen before the end of the year. Sweden has in general been a challenge compared to many other countries, but at the same time one of the countries that previously looked the worst in the whole game and this has thus been a priority for us to improve. Initially, the Swedish main cartography wanted 25 million SEK (around £1.8 million GBP) in payment to allow us to use the country's own maps, which of course we were neither prepared nor willing to pay, but then the EU stepped in and changed a special law which helped us on a broad front and thus not only in Sweden. You live in a challenging country, haha. Getting all your height differences, mountains and fells to look good is not easy but we are working on it. For Flight Simulator 2024, we also have a lot of really cool topographical improvements that we will showcase shortly. That game is a very big step forward graphically. Many will be shocked, I think.

Tell us more!

Haha, I shouldn't... Not right now anyway. The idea is that we'll wait a bit on that but let's just say, I recently played Forza Horizon 5 and was struck by how incredibly beautiful it is, even if you stop the car and study details on the ground. So nice and detailed, we aim to make the 2024 game so nice with a different kind of detail and photorealistic accuracy in terms of topography and other things. I flew over a wooded area in Flight Simulator 2024 the other day and chose to land in a place where I could detail thousands of rocks underwater in a stream, for example.