Ah, the Big Apple! The city that never sleeps. New York City is a dream destination for millions of people across the world, with its iconic skyline and world-famous buildings. In Microsoft Flight Simulator, this American metropolis is impressively recreated with photogrammetry, but some developers still found the opportunity to improve some things. SamScene did just that a couple of months ago with New York City Times, and today we bring you a similar project, this time for free, which aims to enhance the existing scenery with dozens of custom 3D buildings.
edpatino is the developer behind this addon for MSFS that looks to recreate some of New York’s most famous buildings in great detail. 20 years after the tragic events of September 11, he decided this was a good time to celebrate his love for the city and share with the community an impressive pack of almost 50 iconic landmarks scattered around Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx.
Obviously, some notable mentions are the One World Trade Center, the Empire State Building, Times Square or Madison Square Garden, among others. But the developer also added some sporting landmarks such as the Yankee Stadium or the sites that host the US Open tennis tournament.
Furthermore, a couple of heliports are also handily recreated. Blade West Heliport and the Manhattan Helicopters facilities have been improved with the addition of helipads, lights and static helicopters. While they can’t be selected as starting airports in MSFS, you can still use them to land and departure in your helicopter explorations around the city.
If there’s one thing we can fault about this freeware addon is that some buildings, particularly the skyscrapers in Manhattan, have a blue shade to them that can be distracting under certain lighting conditions. Other than that, the whole package definitely adds some spark to New York City, which is one of the most impressive sceneries to fly over in MSFS.
As told before, SamScene offers a paid landmark pack that is rather impressive in its own right, even more so than this freeware alternative we’re featuring today. However, it definitely hurts the performance of an already demanding scenery, something we didn’t experience with edpatino’s package. So keep that in mind if you’re low on resources and look forward to enhancing your New York City scenery in MSFS.
New York City Landmarks is now available for free through flightsim.to.
