Microsoft Flight Simulator, typo gives life to 212-story skyscraper

If you have recently purchased Microsoft Flight Simulator you should take a trip to Melbourne, Australia. The players have in fact discovered a funny “easter egg” born from a typo, which immediately became viral and a tourist destination for all Flight Simulator virtual pilots. It is about a huge 212-story skyscraper which can be seen as it rises above the skies above the Australian city. If you are wondering, no, this very tall building does not exist in realitybut the developers are not to blame for what happened.

After an excellent investigative work by the Twitter community, the cause of this mysterious and bizarre phenomenon was discovered. Apparently about a year ago, an individual mislabeled a two-story building in OpenStreetMap suggesting it was 212 stories tall instead. Thanks to unfortunate timing, the developer Asobo Studio retrieved the same data when building the vast world map in Flight Simulator, resulting in what in reality would have been the tallest building ever.

The fate of a mistake

Now that the mystery has been solved, what will be the fate of this irreverent little mistake? Well at least until it’s removed by the developers, and it will, players can try to land on it and enjoy a breathtaking view, currently being one of the highest points in the entire Flight Simulator map. The title received mostly positive reviews and some have called it an excellent flight simulator for all fans, but at the same time also a surprisingly zen digital tourism experience. Microsoft Flight Simulator is currently only available on PC and takes up quite a bit of free space. The game will come later even on Xbox Onebut it still is without release date.