UK World Update coming soon, France and Benelux next

Today’s MSFS Live Developer Q&A, the first in two months, revealed some cool tidbits about the upcoming weeks and months in the Flight Simulator development cycle. As usual, Jorg Neumann (Microsoft), Sebastian Wloch (Asobo) and Martial Bossard (Asobo), answered and talked very openly and honestly about the most frequent questions from the community, with some exciting updates that will change how simmers experience the sim in the near future.

First and foremost, the highly anticipated UK update is just around the corner. It was supposed to come out on the 26th, but it was slightly delayed. Thankfully, the developers are confident to be able to push it very soon, and even had a gorgeous little teaser video sneak peek to show. Some images below:

Interestingly, even though we’re still waiting for the release of this update dedicated to the UK, Jorg surprised us with the reveal that the next World Update is already in the works, aiming for a March release. This time, it will focus on France and the Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg). Not much was said about that, but at least we know this region will get some attention in the near future from the developers.

But that was not all, obviously. Answering to some of the most requested features from simmers, the developers revealed that they are prototyping a Freeware section in the Marketplace, which will accomodate freeware mods from the community. This means that community enhanced mods like FlyByWire’s A32NX, Salty’s 747 And Working Title’s CJ4, among many others, will eventually be available from within the MSFS Marketplace. It’s something that the team has been discussing with the freeware developers, and there’s goodwill on both sides to move forward with this, which is definitely great news to everyone.

Also being prototyped is the idea of a “Scenery Gateway System” that could allow community contributions to scenery improvements to be globally implemented in MSFS.

Among many other things discussed, we further highlight that the must requested replay system is still a work in progress, and there’s still no clear idea on when it might see the light of day.

You can watch the whole thing over at the MSFS official Twitch channel. If you like to be updated about the current status off the sim and the future plans, this is a must-watch!