Aerosoft announces Offshore Landmarks: Gulf of Mexico for MSFS

Aerosoft’s Offshore Landmarks: North Sea launched for Microsoft Flight Simulator last November, adding a vast playground for helicopter pilots and other low fliers to explore in the simulator. Aerosoft seems to have found a new commercial hit with this product and is now looking forward to expanding the idea into new regions. With that in mind, the second installment in the Offshore Landmarks series was just announced this week and it will take simmers to the Gulf of Mexico!

Mathijs Kok, Project Manager at Aerosoft, unveiled this new project a few days ago, saying that it was a logical step after the success of the North Sea version. In fact, Kok says that it’s one of the best-selling products in Aerosoft’s portfolio!

Clearly, what started as a “wild idea”, turned out to be a very interesting product for Flight Simulator, with high levels of entertainment. The same should be true now in the upcoming version dedicated to the Gulf of Mexico, even if the scenery features a number of significant differences when compared to the North Sea.

Mathijs Kok says that this project will be less focused on the ships and more on the oil and gas rigs, considering the specificities of the Gulf of Mexico’s industrial activities. In terms of scope, we’re looking again at a huge area with thousands of structures, from huge multi-billion-dollar floating platforms to smaller structures from local companies. The ships will also be more diverse, considering this region is much more leisure-oriented than the North Sea.

Given that all of these structures are out in the sea, the performance impact of highly-detailed objects is negligible, since the simulator doesn’t have to render terrain, mountains, aerial textures, autogen, and more. Aerosoft used this to its advantage with Offshore Landmarks: North Sea with very highly-detailed models for the ships, rigs, and other structures. The goal with the Gulf of Mexico scenery will be to push the boundaries of the simulator even more, with impressive models such as the very realistic rig you can see here.

For now, the project is just starting for a few key members of the Aerosoft development team. There are not many additional details available beyond this, but Mathijs Kok will surely provide regular updates through the official Aerosoft forums. As usual, we’ll bring you regular news with the most important new tidbits about this exciting new project from Aerosoft!