Wccftech recently had the pleasure of taking part in the first North American hands-on for Transport Fever 3, an opportunity that was previously exclusive to Gamescom and TGS attendees. During this preview event, we got a first look at their brand new campaign as well as hands-on with the updated Free Game mode.
Urban Games started with a bit of a look at the history of the studio, discussing how Transport Fever 3 has been a title the team has been working on for almost six years, and is the first time that they’ve attempted self-publishing their signature franchise; Transport Fever 2 was published by Good Shepherd Entertainment for the PC release and Nacon for the PlayStation/Xbox console versions. By the numbers, Transport Fever 2 was the transport management simulation genre’s best-selling entry with two million copies sold.
For this year’s numbered entry, Transport Fever 3 is aiming to expand the focus on both the Tycoon mode and the late-game, something that fans have both been asking for. By giving players more mid-game goals beyond just hitting capital targets, Urban Games is hoping to make the third title more than just a train ride to maximum profits. For those with a more casual focus in mind, the sandbox mode allows players to build their enterprise from the ground up without having to worry about financial limits.
By the numbers, Transport Fever 3 is aiming to have more than three hundred vehicles, thirty-five industries, and over forty types of cargo. Rather than having ships be limited to the latter parts of a campaign, as in Transport Fever 3, this year’s entry wants to give players more of a reason to integrate ships into their logistics; one reason given was the introduction of both sub-arctic and offshore industries.
For the preview event, Urban Games permitted us to either play through two of the eight playable campaign missions (Mardi Gras in 1906 New Orleans and Woodstock’s Summer of Love festival in the mid-60’s) or dive right into the sandbox mode and develop freely. I opted for the latter, mixing different attributes together to get a 1980’s bubble era Japan with desert biomes and limited resources. Some of the other campaign missions teased were Norway’s oil rush in the 1970’s, Manila at the turn of the millennium, and a futuristic mission set in the early 2030’s that they’re keeping under wraps for now.
As someone who’s not routinely a simulation player of this nature (SimAnt and RollerCoaster Tycoon/OpenRCT2 are probably the ones I’ve dabbled with the most), diving into Transport Fever 3 required having the kiddie wings on for a little bit before I could head into the deep end. The whole menu-driven formula to Transport Fever 3 does take some getting used to at first, realizing that players need to go into one menu to build out roads, taking into consideration the number of lanes, noise levels, traffic mitigation, et cetera. Once a road is drafted up, it needs to get populated with points like bus stops or logistics routes to move goods along the road. Then a third menu to purchase a vehicle to put it on the route. Then, a fourth menu to select what goods to transport on the route. Then, the consideration of adding maintenance or supply depots along the route to keep the vehicles in top condition and the goods flowing.
For the average player, it’s a lot to take in all at once. For a good ten minutes, I had tanker ships doing a route between two oil derricks and a processing plant back on land, with nothing being accomplished other than paying the salaries of captains who spent eight hours a day sailing around in circles. It wasn’t until I had one of the developers point out that I needed to manually select what the ships were supposed to pick up and drop off, in this case, oil, before they would actually contribute something of value. It wasn’t like the earlier industries I was working on, where transporting vegetables from a farm in one direction or meat in another way was done automatically once a supply route was established.
Thankfully, Transport Fever 3 has a novel notification system of urgently colored messages notifying me if there’s something in my logistics network in need of attention. When it was all said and done, my army of thirty-some Japanese Kei trucks was putting in long hours, sending processed oil all across the countryside, and constantly sending out day laborers as needed to help tend these oil fields or processing plants. In the end, I felt like a proper zaibatsu tycoon managing all of these different industries, all from the comfort of my desk.
To cap off the event, I sat down with Nico, Publishing Manager for Urban Games, with a brief Q&A of questions sourced directly from the passionate Transport Fever community on Reddit. The interview is still being actively transcribed by yours truly, so look forward to seeing his remarks shortly!
Transport Fever 3 is intended for a simultaneous release across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X, and PC with a targeted release later this year.
[Editor’s Note: Urban Games provided travel and accommodations to attend this preview event.]
About the author: Kai joined the gaming team of Wccftech in 2016 and has since penned over a hundred reviews and interview pieces, covering a bit of everything from one-man indie gems to AAA masterpieces and whatever lies in between. Over the recent months, Kai has expanded into preview and interview coverage of not only the gaming side of the industry but also tech and consumer electronics.
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