Anyone picking this up when it releases? I was checking the gameplay on the PS5 Pro earlier. I was impressed by what I saw. £34.99 seems a fair price too.
I think the game looks really good from what I’ve seen. They’ve built a 1:1 Berlin too which is crazy. There’s also the Hamburg DLC but I’m not sure if that’s on consoles…
I did enjoy their Fernbus coach simulator, thought that was really good. I agree though, their games at launch can be rough. It did take months for them to get Fernbus into a better playable state. The fps on PS5 was atrocious for a long time.
Yeah from the gameplay I watched it looked decent. The performance looked good too, if it tanked anytime during the previews I watched it wouldn’t have been a day one purchase for me. I don’t know how trust worthy a review copy is versus the final release, I guess time will tell when I try it later. Yes Hamburg is coming to console I read, but not at launch.
How would you make it better? It’s a very detailed sim and the performance is probably one of the best from Aerosoft. Calling it an arcade game is a poor take.
Fernbus is another fun game. I love how they are slowly building up Europe similar to ETS2. They are working on England at the moment. I really hope they do Scotland afterwards. It would be silly to only include half of the UK….
Really? That’s music to my ears man. Do you know what part of England? Personally I’d love a full London network with Stagecoach/TFL buses. Anywhere in England would be cool though, even Manchester with its Bee network I wouldn’t mind also.
I think they’re building all of England lol. It will probably include all the main cities anyway. Similar to Germany and France etc. There’s vids of it on YouTube but they aren’t speaking English so you might not know what they are saying. I didn’t lol. But they did show off some of the map… I’ll dig it up for you. Edit: Here you go . It looks pretty good so far but you can tell it’s still got a lot of work to get done on it. This was around Xmas time so a few months ago now.
I can’t believe I never knew about this, until now. I had a quick gander at the video and it certainly looks promising, hopefully not too long to wait for a release date. I’m going to be watching the dev updates from now on with envious eyes
Bought the game on PS5 yesterday and was shocked in a good way at just how good it was during the 1 run I had time for. The game ran really well with the maximum graphics, traffic and passengers and is by far and away the best bus simulator to come for Consoles. Also great value as well for what you get. Given that has been a theme in recent TSW conversations it is refreshing to see it is possible to make a game that runs well and does not cost the earth either
I agree, also it’s probably one of the best looking sims I’ve seen so far (on console) for torrential rain. The down pours look so realistic in UE5, it’s truly next level. The only thing bugging me right now it is the save feature. I started the career mode last night, only to find 3 hours in I couldn’t load up my save.
I haven’t bought it yet but I’m definitely going to once Easter is out the way. Haven’t got much pennies at the moment with having to buy Easter eggs for family… Im now in the 1K club. Finally. 1000 comments reached.
Yes that’s what I should have done haha…. It’s terrible how expensive they have gotten. £7 in Tesco for a “XL” egg which looks like the size of a regular one. They were down to £3.50 but the club card deals ended now . Thankfully I got them anyway before. Next week I can start saving up… there’s lots of TSW routes and this game I’m hoping to buy soon.
the sooner that people realise easter eggs are an absolute scam, the better. but in regards to The Bus, it’s great fun. the xbox version has some small issues but nothing that makes it not worth the money; £32 for several lines and buses, or £33 for NY Stamford? i know what id pick. i’ve never been a bus person but that’s changed, highly recommend
I couldn’t agree more about Easter eggs. For Easter I have the Toby carvery booked, sod the chocolate, I’d rather have a roast dinner . Stamford for me just wasn’t worth the asking price. It’s a route I will pick up, but not day one. MVL, the bus and a handful of steam routes I picked up in the sale was enough money spent. I’ve said this before, but the broken save feature on the bus is impacting my enjoyment of the game right now. I hope that gets patched soon. Do you have that problem on the Series X? I’m using a PS5 Pro.
i’ll have a look tomorrow, i’m hoping it got patched with the full release yesterday as it was broken for way too long
The bus is not sim. It is videgame. The true simulator is OMSI 2 and beats The Bus in terms of simulation quality. The driving physics in The Bus are "soft," "imprecise," or "arcade-like" . Add to it a lack of "sense of weight" and "sense of speed," making the bus feel like it's floating rather than being firmly planted on the road . While the visual effect of the front end dipping during hard braking is present, it's seen as a visual gimmick rather than a reflection of true physics. On the contrary OMSI 2 has a realistic physics model. It accurately simulates the interplay between the engine, gearbox, brakes, and retarder. The sense of weight, momentum, and friction with the road is highly detailed, giving you the feeling of actually operating a heavy vehicle. The compressed air system and detailed gearbox control are also simulated authentically - all of that we dont have in The BUS. OMSI" sound environment is considered "impressive" and authentic, contributing significantly to the immersive feeling of driving a real bus. Different vehicles have distinct and realistic sound profiles . Modding is one of OMSI 2's greatest strengths. It has a massive, decades-old community that has created an enormous amount of free content, including hundreds of buses, real-world routes (maps), and gameplay modifications. You can drive almost any bus imaginable on a huge variety of maps. You can recreate any objets by youself! The modding in the BUs is very limited in comparison. There are very few additional maps or buses available. All modding consists of presets...
I agree OMSI 2 is best but it can be a right bear to run. Can’t use the joypad as there is no analogue precision and keyboard is too clunky. So I end up having to drive with the mouse which is not ideal for my neuropathy. Just watched the British Ace stream of the new company mode in The Bus and think I might give that a try later. I presume having bought the early access version when it first came out, it upgrades to the full version without any additional cost? Might have to drag myself away from Medway Valley this evening to give it a try.
Sounds like you asked google Ai to help you with the answer to my question One of the reasons I couldn’t get on with OMSI2. It has the worst controls I’ve ever seen in a sim by far and you’d think a game released back in 2013 would offer controller support by now. It may have better physics and all that good stuff, but if it can’t get the most important component in any game then the bus wins every time. There is a game set in the UK coming soon from TML also.
I shall keep an eye out for that one. The other biggie will be the coach add on for ETS2 but as with most SCS announcements it can be over a year before it arrives in game. Re OMSI2, tried every configuration of the joypad setup but as soon as you moved the steering even slightly the whole vehicle just lurched horribly left or right.
Yeah, I should imagine all early access games offer the full version at no additional cost when they release. Honestly you won’t be disappointed. It’s definitely one of the best bus sims I’ve played so far, also the attention to detail with the modelling of Berlin is top notch. Then you’ve got the UE5 weather effects lighting. Try driving or walking in torrential rain. It looks very nice Sorry Vern, I was half asleep earlier when checking my phone and never replied to this.
Actually, games like this are played with a steering wheel, and OMSI is probably the best simulator among transport simulators for that purpose. Moreover, its dynamics and responsiveness are very close to realism. I know people who prepared for getting their driver's license by actually driving in OMSI. You can't say the same about The Bus
I would be curious to see how that compares to reality as I've always found even professional simulators weren't worth much...
Yeah, the very simple instructions the devs provided. You’ll be set up sometime next year. Btw, I connected my Thrustmaster T300 RS within a minute when playing the bus. That’s customer satisfaction
Well I dragged myself away from Medway Valley yesterday evening to give the full version of The Bus a try. It’s actually not bad, so long as you remember TML are to road traffic sims what Rivet are to train sims (does that make SCS akin to JT? ). Thought I would give the company/career mode a go and managed a couple of runs, though you have to pick your tours (diagrams) carefully as some of the initial contracts are two round trips on the 245 amounting to nearly three hours of driving (luckily the save game works nicely). Can see this being something I come back to from time to time. My only real issue is trying to find a sweet spot in the settings to get the lighting to look right. Trees in particular are very bright and over exposed and the environment has that glossy glare to it. I’m beginning to think this phenomenon of weird lighting is definitely a UE thing - we get it in TSW and now in The Bus which I believe is UE5. So those who think moving TSW to UE5 will wave a magic wand and solve all the lighting problems might want to think again.
i’m inclined to agree with this, UE5 is overrated and tsw would be better with sticking to UE4, but actually doing lighting properly. firefly have shown that the lighting system can be improved without having to upgrade the whole engine
Yeah, some of the career mode stuff can be tiring. I picked a 4x A to B order the other day, most runs take between 30-45 mins and that’s not to account for the wait times between your next service start time. Which can be anywhere between 10-15 mins. I wish there was a way to advance time for that. I normally go down and make a drink to kill time. The lighting can be a little over exposed, I agree. I do like that you can change the weather on the fly, it’s like a watered down version of god mode for TSW Cloudy or Rain is my preferred weather choice. We’ve both said this before. A brightness display setting is needed.
Agreed on the brightness, it would be nice to be able to turn it down just a little. I have not tried the career mode stuff yet, but I am loving just being able to hop into routes as I please and drive a couple of services. Did the 100 for the first time last night, and was my favourite so far. 35 mins for each leg is an ideal amount of time and feels like you have achieved something in the hour. Also a tip I have found on PS5 is as nice as the cctv cameras are on the buses, toggling it off improves the frame rate quite dramatically. So far other than that I have done the 300 which I also enjoyed and the TXL route. Not sure why I was not a fan of that one I did not get on with the Scania so much and the performance seemed alot worse for some reason. Does anyone recommend a route they like in particular I should choose tonight ?
the 123 is nice, goes out of town and stops a lot also i’d recommend the 300, great bus and a good range of sights along the route
Thank you I did the first run on Thursday on the 300 and really liked it. The E Citaro is my favourite bus of the 3 I have driven so far, but I did also like the MAN yesterday a double decker is always fun I shall give the 123 a run out tonight then. Can honestly see this becoming my most played game it is just so relaxing and being a live city feels different each time.
Sorry to ask another question. For routes that have multiple variations, does one bus do say a full length run followed by a shorter turn, or do they all tend to do the same type of service? For example some are set up to do full length and some shorter variations?
Bus Bound is also coming out on April 30th and CTS 2026 is in April too so lots of choices for bus sims lol
I tried Bus Bound demo but my PC is below minimum spec. It worked okay on daytime runs but night time graphics broke up. Anyhow as regards OMSI 2 I briefly reinstalled it this evening but it’s gone again. Even with the 4Gb memory patch installed I couldn’t even get a run to start. Either hung there or crashed to a loop with error messages in German. Will probably end up as one of the few games I permanently remove from my Steam account. IMHO Steam have a bit of a nerve still trying to sell add ons for the title and not cheap either.
I bought the game in EA. So now first time in release version: AI bus rear ends me when stopped at a stop, AI Bus runs into me head on when waiting for a traffic light Fine TML quality once again
