Flight Simulator celebrates arrival of UK and Ireland makeover with stunning new trailer

Flight Simulator's third World Update - which points its wand of finessing at the UK and Ireland - is finally here after a bit of a delay, and you'll be precisely the opposite of shocked to learn it looks absolutely breathtaking in its launch trailer.

World Update 3 - which follows equally stunning makeovers for the United States and Japan - introduces improved aerial and elevation data for the UK and Ireland, "over 70" new points of interest, five new hand-crafted airports - Barra, Land's End, Liverpool, Manchester-Barton, and Out Skerries - plus five brand-new photogrammetry cities.

The latter bring considerably more accurate versions of Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford, and London into the sim, and while that may be a disappointingly England-centric selection, developer Asobo thankfully hasn't completely forgotten about the rest of the UK and Ireland.

As you'll see in its launch trailer below, World Update 3 includes an impressive selection of hand-crafted landmarks from all across England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.

Scotland, for instance, now includes Floors Castle, Stirling Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Forth Bridges, Loch Leven, Glenfinnan Viaduct, the National Wallace Monument, the Out Skerries, Eilean Donlan Castle, Barra Airport, and Mount Stuart House.

England, inevitably, gets the lion's share of the additions, with Land's End, the Eden Project, Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral, the Spinnaker Tower, Brighton Palace Pier, the Cliffs of Dover, Canterbury Cathedral, the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Stamford Bridge, Windsor Castle, Blenheim Palace, Hampton Court, Warwick Castle, Anfield, Blackpool Tower, Jodrell Bank Observatory, the Humber Bridge, Lake District National Park, and the Angel of the North.

Sadly, Wales and Ireland are considerably less well-represented, with the likes of Snowdonia National Park, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, and the Principality Stadium in the former, and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge, Blarney Castle, Killarney National Park in the latter.

Rounding off the update are an Iconic Flight in the Northern Isles, plus two new Landing Challenges - one on the Shetland archipelago, and a "fierce one" over Southeast England.

Those wanting to take the skies and explore the new sights will first need to download Flight Simulator's latest update, which includes various performance improvements and other enhancements, and then grab the free UK and Ireland update via the in-game marketplace.

With World Update 3 now out the door, Asobo is turning its attention to improving Flight Simulator's rendition of France and Benelux - that is, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Expect more details ahead of its planned "end of March" launch.