Microsoft Flight Simulator's Spooky, Mysterious Places Come Alive in PC Gamer's 'Fright Stimulator'

Microsoft Flight Simulator is a considerably popular game, using satellite data and images to stitch together a scaled recreation of the entire world. As we have come to see from such imagery before, there are many inaccessible places on Earth that you can now visit virtually, and Flight Simulator helps you do it from the comfort of your very own virtual plane. Taking this opportunity, the good folks at PC Gamer have come up with ‘Fright Stimulator’, where they intend to fly over to some of the spookiest, mysterious or controversial places on Earth, hence using the Covid-19 pandemic’s lockdown-enforced definition of virtual tourism to an all new level.

Flight Simulator has, among other things, a wide assortment of places on Earth that you may not be able to visit readily. Take the depths of the Amazon rainforest, for example – even in a non-locked down world, such places would not be on your everyday flight roster. PC Gamer’s Fright Stimulator has started with its first episode with the Tunguska Event from 1908. About 112 years ago, a massive explosion over Eastern Siberia is said to have flattened an estimated 80 million trees and at least a few deaths as well. The enigma of this incident is further heightened from the fact that over a century ago, we did not have the tools of constant visuals even in the remote corners of Earth, as we do today.

What makes the Tunguska event a good first episode for PC Gamer’s Fright Stimulator is the lack of concrete data around what may have caused such a massive explosion, despite the commonly accepted theory that it was a massive meteoroid that burst. Given the remoteness of Eastern Siberia even today, it makes for a good first place to have flown to, without the usual array of risks such as procuring a charter plane, ensuring that all technical bits are working fine, and getting permissions to fly across countries and continents.

PC Gamer has been making interesting discoveries on Flight Simulator, including strange, imposing obelisks that have an eerie, Orwellian theme to their design. While Microsoft has affirmed that the causing factor behind these random monuments is a bug in Flight Simulator’s code and not fascism, it all makes for a highly intriguing world in gaming.

If you are a gamer playing Flight Simulator too, tell us about your airborne escapades on the game as well. After all, the mystique of finding sudden, unexpected artefacts in our world is always worth it.