Transport Fever 2: Console Edition review

I always find an odd satisfaction in games that focus on the mundanities of every day life, and transport certainly fits into that category. Can it really be fun creating bus routes or building train stations? What kind of joy is there transporting cargo from one yard to another, or picking up passengers on an allocated flight path? Transport Fever 2: Console Edition manages to offer tons of options to make the grind well worth it, and once your city begins to imitate the hustle and bustle of the morning rush, there’s a lot to love about Urban Games’ upgrade for modern consoles.

Not only are there a ton of options across land, air, and water, there’s a strong tutorial that shows you the ropes and gives guidance for every facet of Transport Fever 2: Console Edition, from how to transport goods from factories to suppliers, carrying passengers around the city via the multiple vehicles on offer, and building routes between all of the industries and stations. This is done through a campaign mode that not only shows you how to play, but provides an interesting history lesson in transport as a whole, starting off in the 1850s and steaming ahead to the present day.

While you’re given a lot of information to process, each step has plenty of direction in how to master the basics. There’s a very simple premise with everything you do, and once you grasp that, everything else will fall into place. Build a production line between the place that produces raw materials such as timber and a processing facility. Once you’ve done this, lay down a depot for your transport and assign your method of transport to the line, then watch as the profit rolls in. Despite its straightforward approach, you’ll need to decide whether you spend high on efficient transport with a high upkeep cost, or choose a more slow and steady approach. Whether you’re transporting goods or people, the UI and controls are well-designed for their implementation on console.

It’s easy to view the outline of your town with plenty of camera angles, and you can quickly switch between factories and town buildings via an inspection option, and when it comes to picking up passengers, viewing finances and statistics, focusing on mission objectives, and jumping in the cockpit of a vehicle, it’s often a case of a simple button press. It’s always something that can be affected when porting games of this magnitude and genre to console, but Urban Games has managed to get it right. Playing Transport Fever 2: Console Edition on PlayStation 5 also highlighted the improvements to the visuals, especially when you’ve got your production and travel lines up and running.

It was pleasing seeing little details like horse-drawn carts travelling down roads or ships gliding across the waters with great visual fidelity unfold, and I rarely found issue with how good it looked. Occasionally, the subtitles froze while the dialogue continued, and some of the menus froze temporarily when switching between new objectives, but this rarely happened and didn’t take away any enjoyment I had from expanding my empire. While the campaign featured a wealth of history for fans to enjoy, it was the freedom in its sandbox mode that offered the most enjoyment.

The campaign is surprisingly long, but it gives you all the knowledge needed to thrive in Free Play. Here, you can take everything you’ve learned to build every mode of transport across different countries, climates, and biomes, as well as the vehicles from America, Europe, and Asia. There’s a ton of options, and learning how to manage the cost of tracks and roads, efficient routes across terrain, and more means you’ve got all the freedom without the hand-holding. I strongly advise you to play through the campaign, because there will be some things that will cause you to struggle when out on your own, but when everything comes together, not only is it appealing on the eyes, it’s also appealing to the mind.

Transport Fever 2: Console Edition is a big improvement on its PC version, with tons of vehicles seeing complete redesigns and environments popping right off the screen in stunning detail. The UI is fantastic, and menus clear to reach and use. Managing your lines through a smooth control system rarely causes you to struggle, however, some of the campaign missions don’t always give you clear instructions, so trial and error becomes a bit of a theme until you get it right. The history of transport was more exciting than I expected, yet the simplicity of your options might not grip anyone that wants a more thorough experience.