Gamescom hands on: I wish I didn’t demo Transport Fever 3 because it’s now all I’ll be thinking about until 2026

Transport Fever 3 is the third iteration of Urban Games’ beloved simulation game and is set to release in 2026. I was able to try out the game at Gamescom 2025, and to be honest, I really wish I hadn’t because it’s all I’ve been able to think about ever since, and I have an unbelievable itch to keep playing.

As the name suggests, Transport Fever 3 is a simulation game that sees you run a transport company to help grow and expand the local area. From cargo planes, down to passenger trains, everything is up to you to set up, run, and maintain as you encourage population and city growth. The third edition of the game takes all of the successful elements of its predecessors and packages them into a tycoon-focused experience.

Rather than feeling quite sandbox-y, as the previous titles may have, Transport Fever 3 has prioritized the tycoon element, providing players with a new level of customisable difficulties and situations to ensure the game can suit any player. If you’re a simulator enthusiast and want to battle some tricky reputation issues with marketing campaigns, you can. If you’re new to the genre and just want to open your own bus depot and then watch cars go by, you also can.

When trying out the game, I was accompanied by the Urban Games community manager, Sam, who guided me through the demo. I was unsure of what I was doing at first because this game almost certainly has a learning curve, throwing you straight into the action with so many options for what you could do next.

You can’t play this game wrong

I felt intimidated but carried on, creating my own bus route connecting two cities to each other. I then began watching the passengers actually waiting at a bus stop, feeling a major sense of accomplishment from my route being put to use. I could feel Sam looking at me, and I felt quite embarrassed – why on earth was I just watching people waiting at a bus stop? He then said something that really resonated with me, “There’s no way to play this game wrong, as long as you’re having fun, you’re playing it right.”

And I indeed was having fun, even if I was just watching people standing still. I continued to grow my company, adding more bus routes, buying more vehicles from the 250 authentic options on offer, and even adding maintenance buildings to ensure my buses weren’t leaking oil all along the road.

The tycoon elements of the game were apparent as I progressed, with so many factors to keep track of to ensure your business is profitable. From the pollution and noise emitted by your vehicles down to how many routes you have running, there are so many elements that can impact your income.

Gone are the days of creating a route and ignoring it while it generated you enough money to retire after a couple of minutes. Instead, these now need to be revisited and maintained. There are many new challenges thrown into Transport Fever 3.

One of these includes the all-new map generation, with four different biomes you can pick from: temperate, desert, tropical, and new sub-arctic. While the previous games just treated these as reskins, Transport Fever 3 ensures that each map type poses its own challenges, which need to be faced.

As I tried to build new roads around the edge of the city – something which would so clearly benefit citizens, I quickly realised that by tearing down a load of the forest which was present in the sub-arctic, citizens were actually furious with me for doing so.

There were also swamps and bogs, which were almost impossible to build roads through, making what seemed like a simple bus route from A to B into a much more complicated and roundabout route. I had to think a lot more about what I was doing.

As overwhelming as you want it to be

Despite the wide range of options available to me, to the point I was a little overwhelmed at first, I realised quite quickly that Transport Fever 3 is exactly whatever you make it. If you want a hardcore simulation experience, you can find it here, thanks to the inclusion of a host of new real-world transport problems. If you just want to relax, you can find it here, thanks to the option to turn off different problems from occurring.

You can even boot into sandbox mode and just make pretty roads and patterns. Simulation games have always been relatively community-driven, something which Urban Games not only knows but encourages thanks to integrated cross-platform modding. If you’re less fussed about the tycoon element and just want to design real-world trains for your game, then nothing is stopping you.

As my demo session came to an end, I didn’t want to leave. I had so much fun playing Transport Fever 3 and knew no matter if I was in a grindy mood or just wanted to have some fun, this was a title I could boot up regardless.

It’s worth noting that even after playing for a while, I still wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing, which only points to the pretty steep learning curve this game has. If you’re someone who doesn’t have too much patience when it comes to learning new mechanics, then this likely won’t be the one for you.

But if you’re willing to put in the time commitment to learn your way around Transport Fever 3, I can almost guarantee it’d be worth your time from my demo session alone. Ever since playing, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and I absolutely cannot wait for its 2026 release.