Transport Fever 2 is a meticulously designed logistics simulator that tasks you with the timely transportation of passengers and goods via trains, trucks, planes, and ships. There is a simple satisfaction in getting something where it needs to go as efficiently as possible, and that sense extends to the gameplay experience as a whole.

It’s probably important to say right away that Transport Fever is the perfect example of a fan series.Transport Fever 2 isn’t likely to convert you if the idea of building a complex, interconnected web of systems doesn’t excite you.Still, if you’re anything like us, you’ll find yourself dissociating for hours at a time, entranced by the possibility of a new locomotive shaving a few more moments off of your most profitable route.

The main draw here is probably Free Play mode, which allows you to generate a random map using predetermined factors such as climate, geography, continent, and difficulty. A fairly granular level of detail is possible, and you can share particularly cool maps with others using the associated seed, which is a nice touch.

You are given a small amount of money to help you start a successful transportation business. The rest is up to you. By finding out what people in nearby towns need, you can make money by getting people and the things they need from Point A to Point B. This will require ridiculously complicated logistics that will turn green countrysides into mazes of rails, roads, and booming cities. This idea is tricky because the goods and materials need to be processed at nearby factories first, and then the finished goods need to be shipped to keep the people in need happy.

Transport Fever 2 has been adapted quite well for PS5, even though it can be confusing at first. Soon, you’ll be able to plan routes and grow your business with just a few well-placed button presses. Everything to do with road transportation has its own section, so truck stops, depots, and bus stops can all be found in the same tab, just like with the other types of transportation. Soon, we were putting up structures and adjusting lines without even thinking about it. We could make changes and fixes as soon as we thought of them.

The game’s soundtrack is always there, and if you let it, it will get stuck in your head and make you bop along for hours at a time—or curl up in a padded room in the foetal position, depending on the day. From the kind of smooth jazz Ron Burgundy would play at a small afterparty to spine-melting, soul-infused guitar solos and back to honky-tonk piano, the music was all over the place. You never know what you’re going to hear next.

Lines are the building blocks of your growing economy, so it’s important to learn how to quickly analyze and change them to fit a specific need. At its most basic, a line is just a way to get from one place to another. But thanks to an easy-to-use user interface, adding stops, assigning more vehicles, and changing the rate of maintenance are all a breeze, and we enjoy looking over our existing routes every so often.

Once a line is running well, money starts to come in, but it also costs money to keep it running. Over time, a big part of the fun of the game comes from making up for the initial costs of setting up what used to be a money bonfire but is now a profitable logistics chain. As time goes on, new vehicles will come out, which will boost productivity even more. The small towns that dot the landscape will turn into thriving cities right before your eyes. This is proof that your hard work has paid off.

You can stop or speed up time as needed, but you’ll still find yourself waiting around and wishing that your new fleet of wagons would just get to work. We do wish there was a higher level of progression, because even on the fastest setting, it was easy for us to lose interest in the experience.

There is a campaign that is surprisingly detailed and almost entirely voiced. The whole thing serves as a deep and extra-long tutorial. You’ll be led through different times in modern history when the economy grew, starting in the 1850s and going up to the present day. This will help you connect remote rural areas to booming economic sectors.

One thing to keep in mind is that everything is done in character and is meant to be true to the time. This makes for some awkward line readings that, while not common, are strange enough to be worth mentioning. In the second mission, “Coffee and Colonialism,” for example, a stereotypical Western commentator talks about how the Javanese workers aren’t as good as the rest of the world. In the same mission, you can choose to look into whether or not some of the people might be cannibals. This seemed like an unnecessary task in a game that is mostly about trains.

Transport Fever 2 looks great for the kind of game it is. Each of the hundreds of vehicles in the game has a nice amount of detail. The environment is also nice to look at, so you might not want to destroy a particularly beautiful view. Technically, it has some frame rate problems, and even in Performance Mode, it never really felt like it was hitting a stable 60 frames per second. Even though there’s a lot going on behind the scenes and strategy games like this are known for being CPU-heavy, it’s still a shame that they’re not more consistent.

Transport Fever 2 isn’t perfect, but it’s a solid and enjoyable experience that gives developer Urban Games a great foundation for future updates. It’s worth a shot if the premise even a little bit interests you, and if nothing else, it will give you a whole new way of thinking the next time you’re stuck in traffic on your way to work in the morning.

Conclusion
Transport Fever 2 is a simulation game for fans that will keep its audience interested for hours. For everyone else, though, it’s harder to recommend because it can be hard to understand, even though the single-player campaign serves as a long tutorial. Even though the frame rate isn’t always consistent and the dialogue isn’t always clear, it’s an undeniably satisfying experience for strategic thinkers and one of the most in-depth games of its kind on PlayStation.

Pro:

Construction of a supply chain that works well
The level of detail is impressive.
Line managment is a breeze
The soundtrack mostly has bops.

Cons:

A very steep learning curve
Frame rate doesn’t feel stable
Conversations can be good or bad.