After months of sneak peeks, the eagerly anticipated follow-up from 2019’s Transport Fever 2 is finally here. Imaginatively titled Transport Fever 3, this game follows on from the previous entries into the series and has you connecting resources to production, production to towns, with a light sprinkling of passenger transportation to keep things interesting.
With a wealth of new features, Urban Games and Paradox Interactive’s latest instalment doesn’t revolutionise the genre, but certainly makes a good impression and improves on the tried and true formula. Many an hour can be lost balancing a city’s need for supplies with its desire to maintain low noise and pollution.
Gameplay
If you have played either of the previous games in the series, or similar games such as OpenTTD, then you’ll feel right at home with Transport Fever 3. However, if this is your first time diving into a game of this type, you are in for a bit of a slog.
As with previous titles, there is a campaign, although with only 8 individual scenarios, the word “campaign” might be a bit strong; they do a good job of introducing the features of the game and give you a rough idea of how the systems work in the form of simple missions. The first campaign mission, for example, has you helping New Orleans tidy up after a storm to host Mardi Gras. This has you building roads, connecting production chains together, and assigning routes. Oh, and you can choose to round up the local ‘gator population for some added reward, because why not.
Each mission has a simple 3-star tier system, completing the tasks given to you in the simple yet charming voice-overs. Is there a reward for completing every scenario to 3 stars? How about for completing the bonus mission in a scenario? It would appear so, but I am yet to find any actual reward for doing so.
As for the main gameplay, that’s going to be done via the free game mode. Here you will choose from, currently, one of four biomes: Temperate, Subarctic, Tropical, or Dry. Then you customize your region how you like. From map size to starting year, there are plenty of variables to make subsequent playthroughs different.
Here is where you will find the main focus of the game, an open map with towns that need supplies, and resources that need moving. How you go about satisfying everyone’s needs is entirely down to you. A sprawling train network? Maybe you prefer shipping? Some air traffic perhaps? Or some good old trucking? To make the most of the game, you’ll need to use most, if not all of the options you have. You certainly won’t be driving any trucks into a lake to collect those fish!
The game can be slow at times; if you choose to start in 1900, be prepared for those slow horse and carts, but over time new forms of travel will become available.
What’s that H for? They have no idea why they built it, but once helicopters become available in the mid 1950s, they sure will be glad they put that there!
The controls and systems are easy enough to pick up and work out what they are all supposed to do, at least with mouse and keyboard; a controller can be clunky and unintuitive at times, but serviceable.
Content & Replayability
The main aim of the game here is to grow your transport empire in the free game mode. Starting with nothing but your company building, it’s your job to give the towns the supplies and transport they need. Take out a loan, buy your first vehicle, and off you go.
Towns will grow in size as you satisfy their demands, getting new demands as they grow, and you will level up your company as you do. This will open up some cosmetics for your company building, new ways to summon new production locations, and major milestone levels will reward you with signature buildings. These come with a bonus to the area they are built in, be it the amphitheatre reducing vehicle noise in the town area, the Taj Mahal reducing air traffic noise, and plenty more.
Transport Fever 3 builds on previous titles with a few added features. Gone are the days of plugging in your route and letting it run. Timing of deliveries plays a much bigger role now, with towns becoming upset if they have to wait too long for their lettuce to arrive. There is also a new subsidy feature. Occasionally, a town or production plant will send you a request, they boil down to ‘move people from point A to point B’ or ‘supply this location with this resource’ with a cash bonus or reputation boost on completion, and a fine or reputation hit if you fail. While this system can be entirely ignored without repercussion, it’s nice to have some more structured elements to focus on.
With only 8 campaign missions and 4 biomes to choose from at launch, Transport Fever 3 can feel limited when it comes to replay value, however, there is full mod support, so expect plenty of other maps, vehicles, and scenarios to come after launch from the community.
Previous titles in the series didn’t get much in the way of DLC, no official new paid content in fact, so it remains to be seen how this iteration is supported in the coming months and years. But with near-endless map configurations, well over 300 vehicles covering 125+ years of transport, you’ll have plenty to keep you occupied.
Visuals & Performance
The visuals do the job nicely. The details on the vehicles are as true to life as anyone would need, the inhabitants of the world go about their day in period-accurate attire, and the buildings themselves will change style depending on the current in-game year. Zooming in shows a lot of detail in the world, maybe not as much as Cities Skylines 2, but more than enough to make the world feel lived in. And talking of lived-in, each biome has its own set of wildlife roaming the map. Fortunately, things like meat come from dedicated farms; those cows are just for show.
As to the maps themselves, they are all a giant floating square with a rather nice layered rock effect around the edge. In places, the ground textures can appear repetitive or distorted. You can change up the scenery using the landscaping tool to help break up any areas you don’t like the look of. The day-to-night transitions are also a nice touch, with street lights coming on during the night, and there are some light weather effects such as clouds and rain. No sign of seasons having any visual impact, though.
I have the game set to medium graphics settings, and even after 50 in-game years and with hundreds of supply routes pathfinding their way across the map, the game is running at a solid 60fps at 4k. They have certainly done well to optimize the game to keep it running without overly high demand on GPU or CPU. There have been a few instances of vehicle pathfinding failing; planes and helicopters in particular seem to get confused following player-set routes and flying in straight lines between stops. This can lead to issues with town noise complaints.
- Reviewed on
- PC
- Version / build
- Release
- Gameplay8
- Audio7
- Design8
- Value8
The Good
- Easy to pick up, tough to master.
- A good selection of real world vehicles.
- A pleasing soundtrack.
- A well optimised, smooth playthrough.
- Endless playability if you are happy to make your own goals.
The Bad (& Ugly)
- Limited game modes.
- Can be mildly infuriating to play on controller.
Reviewed byPhil BlackSupport Unboxed Reviews
Unboxed Reviews is fully independent — no publisher funding, no pay-to-win scores. If our reviews, news and guides have helped you, consider buying us a coffee. It helps keep the lights on.
Donations are entirely voluntary. Supporters receive no editorial influence — our reviews remain 100% independent.