Test machine specs: MSI X670E, AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX, 48gb RAM
NOT to be confused with KristiansAnd, which is in southern Norway and currently available from Gaya Simulations.
DETAIL
I have seen a pretty decent improvement in XWind’s airports, in a short space of time — from their humble beginnings with the seriously flawed Dunedin, to the far better Palmerston North, to the very recent Rockford (which looks about on a par with Palmerston). ENKB is co-produced by another dev (whose name escapes me) and it’s obvious just looking at this scenery that there’s been a significant quality increase. It’s hard to tell whether this is part of XWind’s rapid progression or down to the inclusion of another dev team.
I’ll begin with the ground textures, because they are outstanding across the board. You’d be hard-pushed to find better, to be fair. Add in a few custom runway edge lights and the whole place looks rather nice, right from the moment your tyres touch the asphalt.
The terminal doesn’t feature an interior but, due to the very dark tint of the windows (a feature I’m assured represents the real-life airport), it gets away with not really needing one. I did contact XWind and they mentioned adding an interior at a later date, if they can procure reference images. The terminal textures are good, without being outstanding by 2024’s standards. But there is a lot of fine detail in the immediate proximity of the terminal, both airside and landside. Airside, we have all sorts of protrusions from the tarmac, including snow measuring rods, gantries, apron/taxiway signs, plus a handful of ramp workers (always good to see ground staff, even if they’re only default assets). Landside we again see people, plus the usual assortment of cars, road signs, barriers, lamp-posts, etc. The vehicles are those high-quality examples, which I find so much better than the default, blurry-looking things that don’t seem to be representative of any specific make or model. On release there were two UK police cars parked immediately outside the terminal but, after pointing this out to XWind (in the same email I enquired about a future terminal interior), they quickly rectified the issue in an update and we now see proper Norwegian examples.
Moving further landside we see more custom modelling, with decent roads, several advertising billboards and an assortment of peripheral buildings. There’s also some sort of quarry/construction site but the ground texturing here isn’t up to the standard it is elsewhere. In spite of this, the landside is generally very pleasing to the eye. Worth also highlighting the excellent terraforming that exists across the entire airfield (landside included).
PERFORMANCE
ENKB is only a small, regional airport so even with FSLTL (or FST), performance is stellar. It’s a shame there’s no interior modelling anywhere but this no doubt contributes to the excellent fps count.
VERDICT
Kristiansund is yet another step up in quality for XWind Studios. The ground textures are up there with some of the best, and the detail airside (in particular) and landside is plentiful and generally of very high quality.
Norway has some beautiful landscapes and ENKB is yet another airport in the sim that’s surrounded by some stunning natural beauty. The whole country is greatly enhanced by seasons mods such as REX Accuseason or Bijan’s packs. It’s only a short hop from most other major Norwegian airports so great for those who like regional flying in this part of Northern Europe.
Perhaps the best news is that the airport is currently on sale with a very good discount (50%) at IniBuilds. For £6.60, you’re getting a lot of airport for your money!
IMAGES
To follow…