Bridges are on the map now, and the sky points you to them
Yesterday we started counting flights under real bridges. There was one obvious gap: the game knew where the bridges were and you did not. The hint only woke up within 250 metres of a deck, so you found a bridge by already being under it. Two changes fix that.
Bridges on the map. Both big maps, the one you open in flight and the one at /map, have a new layer called Bridges. It is on by default and sits in the Layers panel next to airports and ships. Each bridge is a teal marker with a small arch drawn on it, placed at the middle of the deck. Zoom in to street level and the deck itself is drawn as a line, so you can see which way it runs and plan a pass across it instead of along it. If you have already flown under a bridge, its marker gets a green check.
Tap a marker and a card opens. It gives the bridge's name and country, how many pilots have flown under it so far, and a Fly here button that drops you next to it. From /map the button opens the game at that spot. The card also carries the OpenStreetMap credit, because the deck lines come from OpenStreetMap under the ODbL.
A hint from a few kilometres out. In the photoreal world, an unflown bridge within three kilometres now shows a short pill at the top of the screen. It has the bridge's name, the distance and an arrow pointing to it from your nose. The arrow snaps to eight directions, which is enough to turn towards it without staring at a dial.
We kept it quiet on purpose. The pill shows for ten seconds, then that bridge stays silent for ten minutes. In a city like London or Paris there are several bridges within three kilometres of any point on the river, and a hint that never goes away turns into noise you learn to ignore. If you are heading towards the bridge anyway, the near hint takes over at 250 metres and stays until you pass. The far hint also gives way to the airport visit timer, which uses the same slot.
The far hint does not show in the stylized world, because a pass only counts where the game can see the real deck. It does not show for bridges you have already flown either.
How many there are. The list has 375 bridges right now, all of them famous enough to have articles in at least six Wikipedias. That covers the big landmarks and leaves gaps in ordinary cities: Hamburg, for example, has none on the list yet. The next part of the bake adds up to ten well-known bridges for each of about 150 bridge-heavy cities, and we will run it next week. New bridges appear on the map and in the hints on their own once that lands.
Every bridge still counts once, for life, and each one moves you up the Under the Deck achievement. Your list lives on your airports page, in the Bridges section.