2026 has been a mammoth year for simulation games. I feel like I have been updating my resume almost every week with bouncer, firefighter, dockworker, storm chaser, captain, and now bus driver.
Polish developers Simteract have just released Bus Simulator 27, with publishing duties covered by Astragon. Both of these teams have got a massive back catalogue of simulation games, so I was extremely excited to get stuck in.
Political Corruption. And Buses
Bus Simulator is set in the fictional area of Felicia Bay, which is somewhere in Southern Europe. The sun is shining, people are happy, but the area is in the midst of political turmoil.
When you arrive in Felicia Bay, you discover the area is in shambles. The state-run public transit network has completely collapsed due to a massive political corruption scandal involving embezzlement and severe mismanagement.
You play as an outsider who has been hired to fix the mess. You must start from the ground up to salvage what remains of the infrastructure and win back the public’s trust.
Planning
Bus Simulator 27 not only has you driving buses, but also running the whole company; from organising new routes, purchasing new vehicles, and hiring and firing drivers.
Your main goal is to link up the district, working with local community leaders and restoring isolated suburbs to the main public transport grid.
You start off linking a few bus stops together to learn the ropes.
The map is quite large and is split up into different districts, including the main city of Mequina, the surrounding suburban areas, and the quaint village of Alcaztelar.
Each area has a vastly different feeling. Allowing you to have a change of scenery when the day-to-day becomes monotonous.
There are three separate game modes allowing for different levels of freedom.
Story Mode follows quests as you make a name for yourself in Felicia Bay.
Career mode focuses on building your company without any story missions.
Sandbox mode gives you unlimited freedom to do what you like. Unlimited money, and everything is unlocked.
You progress the story by designing routes that pass through certain stops and districts to connect them. Early game, it’s pretty simple, as most of the districts are locked and there are only a few stops, but as you progress, you unlock what I estimate to be over 150 different bus stops across 20 separate districts. There is no limit to the number of routes and services you create. In fact, the more you make, the more money you earn.
However, it’s not as simple as just linking them all. Different streets have sharp corners and could potentially be one-way, and I was often met with an error saying stop ‘A’ can’t connect to stop ‘B’. But there was no clear issue with what was wrong or how to fix it. Usually, I would cancel the route and start again. Also, different stops require different buses. Inter-city runs need coaches. High-volume bus lines require certain buses. Plus, there is fuel to consider. And you can’t support it all by yourself.
Putting Together a Team
Once you have some Bus Lines in place, you are going to need some buses to service them.
There are roughly 45 different buses from 13 different manufacturers. You need to sign brand deals to be able to purchase buses for your company.
At the start, you only have access to one manufacturer, but once you start completing Lines and missions, you will earn XP, which allows you to sign other deals.
Once you have purchased a few buses, you will need to hire drivers to drive them.
You have a pool of candidates to choose from. They each have three different skills.
The first two are Driving and Social skills. Each one is rated out of a potential 100.
The third is hidden until you hire them. It’s a professionalism skill which will help towards your company reputation, which is measured through seven different categories. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
There is no guarantee that because the driving and social skill is high that so will the third. Luckly, there is no penalty to hiring someone and then firing them if they are terrible.
Let’s Get on the Road
Now that we have bus lines, buses, and drivers, it’s time to start driving.
Unfortunately, this is where Bus Simulator 27 starts to falter.
The operating of the bus and all the little nuances that go with interacting with the passengers make the world feel alive. There are so many things to do.
You pull up at a stop, passengers pile in, and some of them meet you with a friendly “Hello I want to buy a ticket”. You must navigate the onboard terminal and sell them the correct ticket. However, not everyone is so honest. Fare dodgers will often jump on for a free ride.
You can wander through the bus asking people for tickets and have general chit-chat with them. Some of the things the passengers say are hilarious, but they will get annoyed when asked several times for their ticket.
People will get up from their seats and block the door, start fights with other passengers, listen to loud music, and even fall asleep missing their stop. You have to stop the bus and either calmly ask them to stop or yell, like an old grumpy bus driver.
Each interaction will increase or decrease your social rating, which is another way your company’s success will be measured.
The way you follow the road rules is also closely monitored. Every time you don’t use your indicator, speed, brake too quickly, or miss a stop, you are penalised.
Which would be fantastic if it worked properly. You are penalised randomly for being on the wrong side of the road, cars appear out of thin air, causing a crash. Cars will often get gridlocked, leaving you just sitting there or just crashing into invisible items.
Thankfully, there is a reset traffic option in the pause menu. That I found myself using a lot.
It’s extremely frustrating fighting against such a punishing rating system when it’s not your fault.
The Hard Parts
Visually, Bus Simulator 27 does not look great. Stiff, almost floating, jerky character models, with 3 or 4 repeating voice lines, start to feel repetitive.
Cars blocking intersections.
Clipping textures, feet dipping through the second floor. Character models that look like they are missing pieces of clothing or passengers clipping inside each other, leading to looking like something out of John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing ’, were a common occurrence.
I had several runs in a row where zero passengers got on the bus at all. I had to completely close the game to get them back.
The longer my sessions were, Bus Simulator 27 would start to drop frames, the traffic would lag, and it would become unplayable without a complete reset.
Verdict.
In its current state, it’s going to be hard to recommend Bus Simulator. At its core, it’s an incredible Simulation experience with so many different mechanics to master, and I had genuine fun listening to passengers talking about aliens and pyramid schemes, screaming at obnoxious passengers listening to loud music, and navigating political corruption.
However, with all the optimisation and performance issues, it turns what has the potential to be a great game into just OK.
Gamer Social Club was given a review copy of Bus Simulator 27 for the purposes of this review.
Bus Simulator 27 was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.
Bus Simulator is available now on PC (via Steam), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S
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