Microsoft’s latest Flight Simulator entrance does nothing small. It’s a title that comes on 10 DVDs and allows you to explore the world in almost its entirety. It turns out that scale itself extends to its random inclusions. Flight Simulator users recently found an unusual landmark: a 212-story monolith that towers over an otherwise undescribed suburb of Melbourne, Australia.
In Microsoft Flight Simulator, a bizarre eldritch, impossibly narrow skyscraper pierces the skies of North Melbourne like a suburban Australian version of the Citadel of Half-Life 2, and I’m all for it. pic.twitter.com/6AH4xgIAWg
– Alexander Muscat (@alexandermuscat) August 19, 2020
No. what sleuthing, the community of the title found what had caused the tower to appear in Flight Simulator. When developer Asobo Studio built its detailed recreation of the world, they pulled data from OpenStreetMap, a free map of the world again anyone can contribute to. About a year ago, a user named “nathanwright120” added a tag saying that this one building in Melbourne had 212 floors instead of two. Based on their other contributions, it turned out that the edit was a simple typo, not those trying to mislead anyone. The error was later corrected by another OpenStreetMap contributor, but not before it made its way Flight Simulator.
