New Zealand World Update and DHC-4 Caribou announced, coming in February

The 40th Anniversary Edition of Microsoft Flight Simulator was a massive undertaking for the MSFS team, which gave simmers a ton of free airplanes and other content to enjoy in the simulator. Some may have thought that updates would slow down after that, but boy were they wrong! 2023 will be packed with even more awesome new stuff!

The MSFS team was back this week with a much-anticipated Developer Q&A, which laid the roadmap for the months ahead in Microsoft Flight Simulator. There’s a lot to unpack, which we will do over the next couple of days, but we’ll start with the next World Update and a new Local Legend to go along with it: New Zealand and the De Havilland DHC-4 Caribou!

World Update 12: New Zealand will be the follow-up to the Canada World Update, which launched a couple of months ago to a somewhat mild reception from the community. The MSFS team is aware of some problems with that update, such as poor photogrammetry in places, and will look to fix that in subsequent updates.

Anyway, the core development focus with new World Updates is now devoted to New Zealand, which is getting the usual treatment we’ve seen in this kind of update. Expect to see improved and updated aerial imagery and elevation data, at least 4 bespoke airports and 30 POIs (there are some conversations going on to increase these numbers), 6 photogrammetry cities, and the usual trio of Landing Challenges, Discovery Flights, and Bush Trips.

The New Zealand World Update is counting on the close collaboration of Orbx, which seems to have done most of the work here. The MSFS team couldn’t have picked up a better partner for this job, as Orbx has great expertise in this territory and will surely deliver the goodies! New Zealand is one of the most stunning countries in the world and really deserves to be represented in the sim as accurately as possible.

To go along with this new World Update, the MSFS team has also announced a new Local Legend airplane. This time, the De Havilland DHC-4 Caribou was chosen to represent New Zealand’s aviation.

Again, the Caribou is also being worked on by Orbx, who already did the Fokker F.VII that was associated with the Australia World Update. The DHC-4 Caribou is a STOL-capable cargo aircraft introduced in the 1960s, and it will be Local Legend #8 for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

We will certainly get more details about both of these two new pieces of content in the coming weeks. For now, we have just a few preview images of both the New Zealand update and the DHC-4 Caribou, which you can see above.

World Update 12: New Zealand and the DHC-4 Caribou are currently set for launch on the 7 or 8th of February 2023. It’s another exciting update, but only just a small taste of what’s to come! We’ll be back later today with details about other very exciting updates that will soon make their way into MSFS. Stay tuned!