7.5

Review: Bus Simulator 27

With Bus Simulator 27, the famous simulation series returns with a new part that tries to be larger than its predecessors on almost every level. Developer Simteract and publisher astragon Entertainment take players this time to Felicia Bay, a fictitious southern European region that clearly has a lot of money to spend on.ïIt is inspired by countries like Spain and Portugal. With over 45 officially licensed buses, different game modes, extensive management capabilities and online co-op, Bus Simulator 27 has everything to become the most complete delivery in the series. However, practice shows a slightly more nuanced image.

The beating heart of Bus Simulator 27 is of course driving buses. The game offers a lot of variation. In total, more than 45 officially licensed buses from 13 different manufacturers are available. Mercedes-Benz, MAN, Solaris, Scania, IVECO BUS and Volvo are represented among others. As a result, there is enough choice and the collection and testing of different vehicles actually feels as an important part of the experience.

An interesting addition is the arrival of coaches. For the first time in the Bus Simulator series, you can take the traditional city buses, articulated buses, double deckers and electric models on the road with coaches. This means that you are no longer exclusively engaged in relatively short journeys through urban areas, but you can also drive longer journeys. That makes for a welcome change, especially when you have been driving through the cities of Felicia Bay for several hours.

The buses themselves are also one of the stronger parts of the game. The different models are clearly worked out and each has their own character. Also in the audio field, attention has been paid to differences between vehicles. This gives you a stronger feeling to actually change bus instead of simply driving the same vehicle with a different appearance.

Meanwhile, Felicia Bay forms a completely new playground. The region consists of the cities of Alcaztelar and Mequina, the surrounding landscape and a total of twenty different districts. The South European inspiration is visible everywhere. Sunny streets, urban areas, tourist locations and quieter roads outside the cities ensure that routes visually differ sufficiently from each other.

The game world additionally runs on Unreal Engine 5 and features dynamic weather conditions and a full day and night cycle. Especially when the weather changes or you drive through Felicia Bay during the evening hours, the game can bring beautiful pictures. The size of the map is also large enough to make city services as well as longer routes interesting.

Of course, a big world has little meaning when there is nothing to do. Fortunately Bus Simulator 27 tries to offer more than just driving from stop to stop. You can get out and explore the world on foot, find collectibles and visit different locations. Besides bus driver you can also assume the role of inspector or passenger.

Several events can take place during journeys. Passengers can, for example, create situations where you have to react as a driver. That sounds interesting and helps to make a regular bus ride less predictable. In practice, however, such systems are not always sophisticated. Especially the behaviour of passengers and NPCs may seem unnatural and some events lack the depth necessary to keep them interesting for a long time.

Those who do not want to be alone behind the wheel will have a lot of opportunities to build their own transport company. You create routes, set timetables, hire drivers, assign staff and vehicles to routes and gradually expand your network. As a result Bus Simulator 27 is more than just a collection of loose bus rides.

Just the combination of driving and management gives the game its appeal. Create a new route and then get behind the wheel to drive that service, gives a pleasant feeling of progress. Anyone who prefers to drive around without too many obligations can also go to Sandbox mode.

Next to Sandbox, there is a Career and Story mode. This allows you to decide for yourself how much structure you want to have during playing. The Story mode tries to give more context to your work while Career lends itself better to players who are mainlyïare interested in developing their business. However, the story and the dialogues are not among the strongest parts of the game. They are mainly functional and probably not the reason why players spend tens of hours in Felicia Bay.

Bus Simulator 27 does not need to be played entirely alone. The game supports online co-op for up to four players. Together you can drive routes and work on the same bus company. Especially with a regular group of friends this can be a nice addition. Where a long bus ride in singleplayer can sometimes get somewhat monotonous, driving together automatically results in more variety.

On PC there is also support for mods via mod.io. This can become important for the life of the game. When the community starts to create new content, the offer can eventually become significantly larger than what is standard.

Yet Bus Simulator 27 doesn't drive off without problems. Since the release several technical problems and bugs have been reported. Traffic-AI is an important focus. Cars can behave strangely, traffic can crash and certain situations can lead to unjustified penalties for the player. Passengers and NPCs do not always behave as expected.

That is particularly annoying in a simulator in which immersion is important. When you concentrate on finishing a route and suddenly do something illogical to an AI driver, part of that credibility disappears immediately.

The developers have now released several hotfixes addressing crashes, savegame problems, traffic situations, passengers, performance and other gameplay problems. This shows that the game is being actively worked on, but at the same time it underlines that Bus Simulator 27 is not yet polished on every level.

The performance also deserves attention. Unreal Engine 5 makes a more detailed world possible, but also makes firm demands on hardware. Especially PC players will have to look closely at the system requirements and their settings. A simulation game like this benefited greatly from a stable framerate, because glitches were noticed much faster than during quieter moments.

What Bus Simulator 27 ultimately essentially does well is to offer many different ways to enjoy the concept. You can simply catch a bus and drive a route, manage a full transport company, work with friends or explore Felicia Bay quietly. The huge selection of licensed vehicles is one of the biggest advantages.

At the same time, the game feels like it needs a little extra time. The basis is convincing, but bugs, variable traffic AI and other technical imperfections prevent a fully-groomed simulation experience. That image can also be seen in the user reviews on Steam, which are distributed shortly after the release.

That's too bad, because under these problems is a bus game with a lot of potential. Felicia Bay offers plenty of space and variety, the fleet is impressive and the addition of coaches is a logical extension of the formula. Especially for fans of the earlier Bus Simulator games there is much to discover here.