Bought TSW 6 (possibly last time I'll buy a TSW title) on PS5 Pro, and straight away noticed several bugs which have been there since TSW 5 and even 4!!! Do DTG just ignore these bugs, or not have any programmers that can solve them? First one is the old load into a Timetable setup (as a passenger) and can't move in any direction. Have to go to menu and restart every time. Why has this not been fixed? It's been years now! Is DTG not embarrassed by this? Also, another ongoing issue... the long press on the options button still doesn't always remove the on screen UI (AP & Clock). I registered a ticket for this a while back, and it still is an issue.
They did fix quite a big bug in TSC where an aspect of quick drive creation would LOVE out if the scenario got bigger than 4gb.
The problem DTG have at this point is that most of us have seen the cult classic Guillermo Del Toro horror movie "Mimic", and are therefore intimately familiar with the concept of fancy new kinds of bug in a trenchcoat, so when a new numbered TSW releases each year, we know what to expect....
Sadly they tend not to fix any bugs except some really, really major ones. It's not as if they wouldn't have enough programmers, but from their standpoint it's simply more profitable to churn out more and more new "content", as half-baked as that may be. Meanwhile, pretty much every released route or loco has got some issues (sometimes major ones like services not being able to be completed, or erroneous signalling) which will probably never be fixed. I have argued a lot for more care and maintenance for the existing stuff, but have given up at this point Seemingly not. Money seems to be a good replacement for self esteem. Yeah I'm in a bad mood about this.
Though you have to wonder if Matt being summoned to France this week is because Focus have finally cottoned on to the state TSW has been allowed to get into and are demanding answers and hopefully solutions too.
DTG is simply money-hungry, which is why they release a so-called new version of TSW every year. That way, they can say that the TSW5 routes and locomotives are old DLCs, and most of them don't get any more updates. If you just look at the bugs in the core version, I think it's outrageous that they're not fixing them. Many TSW5 routes that came out in 2025 also contain numerous errors, and so far only the most necessary errors have been fixed. And since we now have a so-called new game, it is normal for DTG not to fix any more errors in the old version, even though the old errors are still present in the new game.
Exactly. And then there's the route and loco bugs. Pretty much every route I drive on and every loco I drive with has got some sort of issues. Even the ancient ones like Ruhr-Sieg-Nord. If those haven't been fixed yet, I don't have much hope for newer routes either. By now I'm wondering why the Feedback forum even exists. Looking at the Ludwigsbahn feedback thread for example, there are still a number of issues which have been highlighted soon after the route came out, and still haven't been fixed. Or the E94 pack. Barely anything from its feedback thread has been fixed at all. Granted, it's a rather new DLC, but since TSG is always very open and welcoming with feedback, I expected a patch by now. The lack of communication is another problem: Even if something can't be fixed, I'd rather have some "We can't fix that because of xxxx" instead of just silence. Once again I'm gonna praise TSG here, they usually communicate very well in their respective feedback threads Either this, or rather the opposite... less quality, more quantity, for more quick money. Guess we'll have to wait and see. Much of my optimism has gone down the drain lately, and I don't like that
TSW reminds me of an old house I used to own. The previous owner had simply papered over some major cracks in the dining room wall. When we stripped the wall to paint it, the cracks were still there of course. But at least we took the time to fix them. The cracks in TSW are being papered over with new gimmicks, as happens every year.
What's your evidence that Matt has been 'summoned'? All I've seen in the streams is that he's going there on a work trip, for all any of us knows it could be a regular gathering of Focus's lead producers. Focus's, er, focus is on DTG delivering growth and profits, not the grumblings on forums and Discord.
I have it on good authority from a bloke down the pub that the Focus execs have recently been seen entering the company's HQ carrying dribbly candles, a ouija board, and a pair of cat ear headphones....
I've been thinking the same thing. If you head over to the Riviera line feedback thread, you'll probably see DTG replying to it, then head over to Cardiff Network or GOBLIN and I doubt you'll see a single reply from DTG. They only really focus on the core releases, and never fix bugs on other routes. What doesn't help it is quite a few of the ambassadors (not all of them, just a few) will defend DTG constantly and come up with excuses as to why they don't fix them. Once after I brought up the glowing benches on BCC in a stream, I was told its not a bug but a light baking issue. That somehow makes it okay?? It's really frustrating because I really enjoy TSW, but the fact that bugs don't get fixed is keeping me from wanting to buy anything else TSW. You know it's bad when people were releasing videos on BML after the "back doors being stuck open bug" was fixed, this just shows how little bugs are fixed in TSW.
I must admit that as a pretty new player (but long time gamer), I am quite surprised at the amount of sloppy bugs that seem to be present compared to other games I play. Not game-breaking necessarily, just little things that all add up to make you feel like the game is a bit 'amateur'. Probably could be forgiven if they cropped up and then got fixed within a reasonable time frame, but I have tried googling many of them only to find threads about the exact same issue from years ago!! I guess they are quite a small company within the industry as a whole and what they produce overall does seem pretty impressive from my limited time with the game. But a little QC on your product can go a long way!!
Yeah, pretty much came to the same conclusion long ago but today of all days I already voiced it somewhere else already... but I'll say it again. I honestly believe the feedback subforums exist more so that the team can point and laugh at users having issues, than for getting them fixed, at this point. Sometimes they'll even intervene with the occasional "we're having someone look at it" just to play with us a bit more, it's appalling.
I've said it before, but my mind always returns to the curated scenario on one route, which is part of the journey mode, where you had to move logging wagons around, but it was impossible to complete because the junctions are automatic, no user control at all, and it always took you onto the wrong tracks after you just spent ages positioning and joining up these wagons, thus resulting in a scenario failure. The worst part of this one is Matt told us the team had fixed it. They clearly hadn't, and users told him so. Did they go back to take another look? If they did, they never told us. Also if they did, they must have failed to work it out, and you just think it can't be that hard to fix an automatic junction switching over to the correct path. Either that or the team said to him, no we definitely fixed it, and he took their word for it over the players'. It certainly didn't work last time I tried it, a long time after they claimed it was sorted. On the flipside, I am extremely grateful they did fix the major save game red aspect bug, because if they hadn't my TSW journey would have ended after the first few days of playing and realising saving always resulted in a permanent red light and failure. But that bug was in place for, what, a few years before it was fixed? And it took my constant "shouting" about it on here for it to get proper attention. It was the only reason I joined this forum in the first place. But it shouldn't take years and a bombardment of frustrated forum posts to get any bug fixed.
They did fix the audio issue on PS5 that got introduced with TSW6, and possibly by re-designating certain faults as features, but my experience is that hardly anything gets fixed. Certain issues I hit were first reported one or more years ago. Having said that, some of the unable-to-achieve-gold freight trips on "Main-Spessart Bahn" now seem more do-able. You still have to shuffle back-and-forth a few times to rack up extra points to get gold, but at least the traction issues that made things an ordeal (i.e., wheels either didn't move or spun in place) seem to have been addressed. Unfortunately something's regressed with the electric brake--it'll get activated as part of the train brake but no longer deactivates along with it so you have to cycle through the release both kinds of brakes to resolve the traction lock.
All good points! And here we are - over a week later - with numerous stories of bugs being ignored - and absolutely nothing from DTG on the matter.
In practice, no. This is why I am very slowly building up a list of bugs in a Google Sheet, so that it can serve as a reminder of how many bugs DTG have allowed to accumulate. The link is in my signature, and I would greatly appreciate it if people contributed by posting bugs in its thread - I probably have not logged even a thousandth of the bugs in the game.
So just a tiny example.... Playing scenarios (dunno if this is console specific) and when reading the description on the selection screen, if there is more text than the size of the text box, then you can't see it, so no idea what the last past of the challenge is. No scroll down or anything. This is so easy to fix that I thought it must be new on TSW6 or something and not known about, but then I google it and find a thread complaining about the exact same thing from December 2023! As I said, it's tiny in the big scheme of things, but lots of tiny things add up to make bigger things!!
During my tenure at DTG I spent 2 years heading up a team of 5 people specifically dedicated to addressing player concerns and implementing newer features into older routes and trains. We completed literally thousands of changes on most TSW content. Granted it took a while for the improvements to get released. However despite all that threads like this would still get posted regularly. As someone else has pointed out, if the particular issue of the poster is not addressed, DTG are accused of not fixing anything at all.
Yes, a lot of work maybe done in the background, but if DTG doesn't communicate that to players then it didn't happen, so clearer communication is needed. Only recently Matt disclosed the problems around the passengers system, these problems have been there for years and only the fact that a load of posts came up about improving the passenger system did the disclosure come out. If there is a problem, you take ownership of that problem and you keep the customer in the loop or you can stick your head in the sand and hope it goes away.
I think the absence of the preservation crew is being felt more acutely with each new TSW release, as the bugs compound year on year, and stuff isn't being addressed the way it was back in those days, so you have TSW4 routes that have not seen a decent bugfix pass, where a bunch of TSW2 stuff is still holding up thanks to the team's efforts.
What's the logging wagons one (route/journey/scenario) so that I may try it out and see what happens?
Hi off this subject do you have any plans to add the 158 GWR to the Rivera line its missed be good if it was added
And then we end up waiting 10 years for it be actually be in the timetable like with the Scotrail one on Fife Circle, no thanks. At least that one has Edinburgh Glasgow to run on
Yes the life of the Preservation Crew appeared to be cut short suddenly and without warning without being allowed to finish its work. Whether that impression is accurate or not, the PC should have continued and become a permanent task force. Its absence has left a void in DTG's operations and we're paying the price every day that major bugs go unaddressed.
From what I have seen. You have high priority game breaking bugs that get fixed. Or low priority, like immersion breaking bugs for example, that are unlikely to get fixed. There's routes with low priority bugs that are still present from the days of tsw 3.
When TSW3 was announced, all work on TSW2 content was abruptly cancelled, so any bugs present in "2" were carried over into "3", and some remain to this day.
Are they using AI bots to reply to bug reports now? Because any time I report something, I get a suspiciously AI sounding reply.
And yet, here you are now - no longer working for DTG / addressing player concerns - which speaks volumes regarding DTGs priorities. You also state "However despite all that threads like this would still get posted regularly." Why do you think that is? With respect to your last sentence, what are we to do if a particular bug has been pointed out numerous times before / reported, and nothing is done about it? I agree that a lot of bugs do get sorted, but what of the ones that are now years old? Are we to just accept it and move on? I think it says so much that we still don't have any sort of response from DTG in this thread. Are the community team adopting the same ignore policy as the rest of the team? Surely DTG understands our frustrations - all we want is a fully working game (bearing in mind the amount of money spent on endless version updates & dlc) - yes there will always be the odd bug that works its way in to the code, but when the community goes out of its way to point them out & document them, surely we deserve enough respect for them to be fixed? Its business 101.
Yeah, I don't get it at all. They have built a really good game, that for the most part, works well. Therefore the expertise is clearly there. If it wasn't then no one would even play the game, as it would be rubbish and this would all be moot. But then they don't fix basic bugs like a light is wrong, or a button doesn't work, which should be absolutely simple considering the vastness and the complexity of what they have created. You can build these crazily detailed timetables, route maps, locos etc, etc, but then you can't change the colour of a light? Hmmm... there is a disconnect somewhere! I do wonder if it is just understaffing and almost all the focus goes to new DLC which creates the revenues and there is just no time allotted for these programmers, who are clearly very skilled, to go back and spend a bit of time fixing easy stuff from the past.
I think there is probably a lot of truth in this , they bring out a dlc , and very quickly move onto the next one! They might do a Patch or 2 and fix some things but then the DLC is left in its half working state! And sometimes some of the stuff they’re fixing are quite small things , and they are not addressing the bigger bugs! Examples are the class 350 braking , no passengers at Euston, and of course there are many other examples! I remember there was a bug on the class 377 London to Brighton some time ago where the rear door of the train was open most of the time , this I think took years to be fixed!
I will say this ( and I'm speaking from memory here ), Adam and his team worked tirelessly to bring the older routes up to snuff and fix many of the problems raised by players while the Preservation Crew was in existence. I recall many Roadmap streams in which Adam reported that fixes were done and dusted and were waiting for a release date. But there always seemed to be roadblocks and obstacles from some level of management that got in the way of getting the fixes out to players. And his staff, though small in number, seemed prone to being reassigned or shared with other areas. And then, suddenly, the Preservation Crew was gone. And a useful and productive group was disbanded. If my memory is shaky, so be it, but that's what I remember. So Adam and his crew should be remembered in a positive light, even if their work was ultimately cut short by DTG management. We need such a dedicated bug- fixing department today, more than ever.
An in game way I found of summing it up, well for at the very least a timeframe of months I was running many services in the game across many different routes, mostly passenger, the vast majority of them either about 2 passengers onboard or non, did I notice ? yes, did I care ? Not as much as it should have, why ? Too busy being annoyed by another issue to realise a train game was practically missing the feature of passengers… Edit: One issue I seem to bang on about a lot (for good reason) had an extra problem of taking years for any acknowledgment of existence despite its widespread and impossible to avoid existence across 5 similar but different consoles to this day, if it took years for that, I can only imagine it will take decades for a fix…
Unless they are all over on Discord now, the only CM I see trying to update us on things is Harry. What’s the point of employing (assuming they are all full time DTG employees) Community Managers who don’t actually manage the community? Not saying they should be spending all day on the forum but there should be a much greater presence, being open and helpful about the various issues being raised. And what happened to the unpaid CM’s, i.e. the Ambassadors. They should also be in the lead as regards knocking on Matt or whoever’s door to pass on the mood of the crowd. Not just on the forum but also on the official Facebook feed. Lots of PR heavy announcements and sales pitches but rarely does anyone from DTG come in with any follow up. For a company diverting a significant portion of their revenue into a PR department, their public relations is quite poor!
