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With flight sims and racing sims continuing to grow in popularity with more and more peripheral manufacturers creating new controllers to make playing games in the genre ever easier, this month sees the return of another, often overlooked area of simming, but one that has been around for over 20 years since Microsoft Train Simulator first hit tracks in 2001.
The Train Sim World franchise from Dovetail Games joined the fun in 2017 and is now about to release its fifth, and most advanced iteration on 17th September. The team at Dovetail has been busy putting the final touches to the sim and has released a Developer Diary to take players through some of the new features.
These include Conductor Mode, Route hopping, and a vastly upgraded Live Map, which for the first time allows you to pull up information on any train and signal on the route quickly and easily.
Included routes include the San Bernardino Line – Los Angeles to San Bernardino, the UK’s West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Milton Keynes, and Frankfurt to Fulda in Germany.
As you might expect there are several different versions you can buy with the Deluxe and Special Editions providing extra items which you can see details in the graphic below.
The full list of new and improved features is below.
- NEW Conductor Mode, on new Core routes and future route Add-ons
- NEW Route Hopping, between routes that share a common location – Including support for selected back catalog route Add-ons
- NEW Fast Travel, allowing immediate travel within a route
- NEW Digital Screen Accessibility on relevant trains
- UPDATED Live Map, with icons, legend, and train service information
- UPDATED UI and Menus
- UPDATED Photo Mode, including live weather / time of day changes
- UPDATED Track Shadow Rendering
- UPDATED Creators Club Tools
- UPDATED Training Center
- Including unbranded BR 146 + Dostos
Train Sim VR
Dovetail has also announced Train Sim World VR: New York coming to Meta Quest which puts you in the cab of either a M3A or M7A train along a 24-mile line above the streets of Park Avenue and through the Woodlawn suburbs.
The VR game even features your own New York apartment, so that’s probably worth millions in itself.
