Asobo/MS planning the Antonov An-225 for an upcoming Local Legend
The Flight Simulator team regularly issues development updates that offer great insights into the work that is going on behind the scenes. Either by providing feedback about community requests, or estimating the planned release of a specific feature or bug fix, these updates often bring some unexpected surprises. This week we’re learning that the MSFS team is now planning to bring the ill-fated Antonov An-225 as a new airplane in the Local Legends series!
Local Legends has featured some famous airplanes from specific regions of the world, usually connected to the World Updates that regularly come to the simulator. For now, we’ve gotten the Junker Ju-52, the Fokker F.VII, and the Dornier Do J Wal, but others are surely coming. Eventually, it seems, the mighty An-225 Mriya will be targeted for a release in this series, judging by a small detail provided by the MSFS team in this week’s development update.
The An-225 has been a huge loss for the aviation world, destroyed during the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine. The massive airlifter, owner of several world records and a unique specimen of its kind, is sadly unable to fly again without a huge investment to rebuild it and bring it to its former glory. Shortly after this tragedy, some simmers were quick to request the re-creation of this iconic airplane in MSFS, probably a befitting choice for an upcoming Local Legend.
After some consideration, it seems the MSFS team has acceded to this request. This was the most requested element from the community in the last three months, and after being “Under Investigation” for some time, its status has now been changed to “Planned”!
While no other official confirmation has been made, this is a clear sign that the An-225 will indeed come to MSFS by the hands of Asobo/Microsoft. This is great news for any aviation fans, who should be able to enjoy a detailed model of this icon. We will surely be waiting for further information about this undertaking, hopefully learning new details during next week’s developer Q&A.
Some simmers may remember seeing the An-225 featured in our header image during the last couple of months. Following its tragic destruction, the An-225 became a symbol of Ukraine’s fight, so we thought it could also be a symbol of our own support for Ukrainian’s cause. For those shots, some of which you can see in this article, we used a basic freeware version that has been available for some time, a conversion of an old FSX model.
For now, all we have is this big hint that the An-225 is planned for a release in Microsoft Flight Simulator in the future. Hopefully we will soon learn more details about these plans, which we expect to attempt to reproduce a faithful model of the aircraft, fairly realistic in terms of flight characteristics, but essentially an effort to digitally preserve this historic airplane that may never take flight in the real-world ever again. Fingers crossed!
