Seeing that it's very likely to release this year, I am already thinking about all the things that can be done with the numerous variants in the pack. While it'll be most fun on Frankfurt-Wiesbaden due to the service variety and the route itself being a really enjoyable one, I personally am most looking forward to the Munich variant being the most modern one with the plug doors instead of pocket doors, having gone through modernizations and being equipped with modern white LED destination displays on both the front and the sides, aswell as LZB. I am not sure if it's too much to ask for, but I hope that DB red Cologne and Stuttgart variants will also be added to the pack for the community to utilize them right away and future-proofing it for potential S-Bahn routes from the respective cities. Since the old orange liveries are also going to be a part of it, maybe it's not too wrong hoping for 420 001, one of the prototype units before serial productions, which is now standing around in Nuremberg covered in graffiti. Would be great for railtours, just like how it was running special services a last time in Munich back in 2015 (from what I know atleast). What are your thoughts about it? Are you excited?
Honestly the fact that we aren't getting it for the München – Augsburg route, the fact said route needs reworking anyways even if it come to it. Plus the whole S-Bahn saga putting a bad taste in my mouth, even as a PC player, really killed much of the excitement for me. The 420 on its own will probably be very solid no doubt, but like the 218 before hand when no route it's on I particularly want that kind of hurts it. I didn't get that until TSG's loco/timetable pack for Linke Rheinstrecke, and I imagine it's gonna take that or a new route to similarly get my attention for the 420 unfortunately.
Citing from the October Roadmap this year: "Currently, their team are working on additional gameplay, including a timetable for Munich-Augsburg replacing some of the DB BR 423s with the new 420s" And even if that wasn't the case, the Munich 420 is still included nonetheless, so it can be used in Free Roam or community-made timetable mods.
There is no information about TSW and UE5 at all. There is a new upgamig metro race game made in UE5, that's all and something totally different.
While I am usually advocating for freeroaming even passenger trains as I don't care at all if passengers have boarding animation or not, freeroaming S-Bahn is a hot mess, with 30 stops and complicated knot stations to navigate with signalling often not prepared for any path through that is not used by timetable trains...
That maybe a sign telling us sooner or later UE5 will be coming to TSW near the future sooner or later. But the proximity is very close.
Metro Rivals obviously the test bed. There’s probably a shadow development for TSW “Next Gen” in the background. If successful we will probably see that in 2027 or 2028 along with a curated selection of converted/rebuilt UE4 content.
If it took two years to go from fish to trains (and we're talking about moving from the Kuju engine to a completely different engine originally), I think the transition from UE4 to UE5 will be faster than ever. It's still the same engine, with added features. And, to be clear, UE5 has been around since 2022. We're already a bit late, I'd say...
UE5 in general has enough issues and is not performing that well, especially not on consoles. With TSW on UE4 already has a lot of (performance) issues, it's likely running TSW on UE5 will cause even more issues. So with this in mind, waiting for the next generation of consoles is not a bad idea. Developing a new game from scratch on UE5 will be possible also a better idea then trying to port over a UE4 game which has already several issues. If you look at TSC, this game still runs on an old engine, so if DTG choose the same path, TSW with UE4 will be around for some time. About the bit late with UE5, developing costs time and most of the UE5 games released today has issues. Some of them are engine related and are fixed with newer versions of UE5, but developers who started on an older version seems not to upgrade the game to a new version. Also the lack of knowledge and documentation how to proper use the engine, seems to cause issues.
UE5 absolutely must run on PS5. It will be 2030/2031 before everyone switches to PS6. I think we already have an example of this with the move from PS4 to PS5. It's commercially unviable. Rockstar won't wait for PS6 to launch the most anticipated video game of all time.
Im praying for a release date announce in the november roadmap. I believe the 420 will enhance the experience on Frankfurt Sbahn by far, as i did get a bit tired from the 430 with it having a similar driving style like the 423 and 422. The 420 layering on Stuttgart-Heilbronn with 2 new additional variants makes the wait even more difficult. I dont own the E94 to this day, but looking at the AI 420 layers might change that.
Well, if you like reduced timetables like Frankfurt S-bahn or the timetables on te first TSW routes like Rapid Transit, then TSW on UE5 is maybe a good idea. I prefer they keep using UE4 for now, maybe with a newer version of UE4 so they can use FSR on consoles and PC and DLSS on PC.
I'd prefer that too. But they've clearly said (or at least you can clearly deduce that from the Metro Rivals stream) that this isn't the case.
After a note to myself to stay on topic and talk about the BR420, I'm looking forward to the BR420. How much I like to drive trains like the BR422, BR423, BR425 and BR430, an older S-bahn train is quite interesting and will give a different driving experience. The different versions and liveries and the layering on multiple routes, are making this an interesting pack. If Munchen - Augsburg is getting a new timetable, then it's about time for me to buy this route, so I can drive with this train on Munchen and Frankfurt S-bahn networks.
