After the huge amount of forum postings regarding US content, I thought to refer to NEC: New York-Trenton again. More precisely on Sunnyside Yard. It's arguably one of the busiest railroad hubs, not only in the US, but in the entire world. The subject of trains (i.e. missing LIRR layers) is not in the foreground here, as it is more about the scenery. Because NYC is a constantly changing hot spot, you can't be 100% correct when it comes to the skyline, as new skyscrapers are constantly being built. Otherwise it's also clear that the current skyline in TSW was kept very poorly. Compared to LIRR, the buildings and scenery around Sunnyside Yard have been revised a bit and it looks better than before. One could have put more effort into individual facades, but it can also be a lack of various building assets for US cities in the UE4 presets database. The biggest lack of scenery is and remains the skyline of Manhattan, which was visible in LIRR (although very sparingly), but it seems currently no longer present. If you compare it with real photos, something is clearly missing. The ideal solution would be to take the existing WTC scenery (from LIRR) and extend it slightly north of Manhattan. Then the skyline would be much more complete and one would have the feeling of really being at the gates of NYC. Some buildings at least rise up to more than 400m in height. If you stick to the simplest lowpoly modeling and use lowres or no textures, it's more than sufficient for these distances. I think it's good constructive criticism. The effort for improving a skyline should be limited, but would significantly increase the fun of the route. BTW: some photos were taken with a zoom lens, so Manhattan looks bigger than it would look with the normal in game camera.
Honestly you wouldn't even need 3D models for it. They could be done as 2D sprites, similarly to the San Fransisco skyline on Peninsula Corridor.
Not to mention updated scenery assets already exist for the Sunnyside area in the TS1 version of LIRR.
I think the problem was to say ok that's enough for this area, i.e. the rest stays as it is. But if there is an available newly modeled scenery from a current TSC LIRR version, it should have simply been adjusted in UE4 in terms of shaders and materials and then integrated it in the existing scenery. Especially the skyline of Manhattan was apparently completely left out, which is the biggest immersion killer for a real NYC. Maybe it has to do with the fact that if we beautify everything here, we would have to do the same with the old LIRR version in order to achieve a status quo. That would also mean twice the effort in the end. But as the current Steam reviews show, it actually backfired. The eagle eye community notices everything. If things can be done better, then they should be done better. As said, it mainly concerns the (missing) representation of Manhattan, the rest of the route looks great and much more detailed than the old TSW1 version. BTW: The scenic US routes like CJP or SPG are actually always top. Because they arn't laying in one of the largest and most densely populated cities in the world.
