A handful of years later, and I am still both positively and negatively talking about Stillalive Studios’ previous bus-based simulation game. It would seem like poor form to mention it by name in the opening line of the review of the new one. Sadly, no one told that to the marketing team. Now partnered with Saber Interactive to bring a different flavor of bus simulation, Bus Bound sees you take charge of a novel new concept for the US: A locally run, publicly funded, well-maintained, and efficient public transport system. Oh, the fantasy!

That’s exactly what Bus Bound is, as in the boring real world, we see $12 public transit in New York being bumped to over $100 for the upcoming World Cup. The town of Emberville, much like the town of Morganville, is a gray, industrial, mid-redevelopment, basic US town/city. With the help of a plucky local government, a lot of driving a route once, and the idea that people are positive about public transport on social media (again, a fantasy), you’ll make Emberville into a cheap European town with moderate tourism.

Of course, I am being snarky, as each update to the town you make from the continued progress just fuels this idea of a “15-minute city” or a walkable city. Unlike the aforementioned Bus Simulator 21, which is all over the marketing for Bus Bound, you don’t start the bus company, set up a route, and drive that all day. You set up a route and drive it once, as the social media adulation pours in, the more likes you get, and the closer you are to redevelopments and unlocking buses, paint colors, or liveries for said buses. It’s a simple idea that worked better on paper.

Emberville, when you start, is like any other US city or town: Dominated by big, lumbering cars driven by people too stupid to realize they aren’t the only ones on the road, and the idea of public transport gets you yelled at or threatened. With a bit of fantasy magic, the people of Emberville are more receptive to building a bus station, removing a massive car park by the arena for a transport hub, and redeveloping the school and commerce district to put people first.

As I say, the American aspect of it makes it feel like a fantasy of a storyline. Albeit a loose storyline that doesn’t get in the way too much when it comes to the visual aspect, though it certainly is overbearing when it comes to the gameplay.

Instead of hopping on a bus and going off on adventures of shouting at OAPs for paying a $20 bus fare in 10¢ coins, all public transport is free, and your day is driving any given route once. What? Yeah, the game simulating driving a bus in a city has you drive any given route once per day, then you go back to the depot and get the unlocks from all the adulation on social media. I’m confused by that idea, if I’m completely honest.

Say it was an optional “I don’t want to do hundreds of laps of this town at once, I just want to do each route once” mode, I could see it as an optional “accessibility” thing. As a default game mode, as the point of the entire game, it feels like I’m being interrupted by the story elements of the town being redeveloped with very little payoff. It also confuses me that marketing builds all the goodwill with “from the creators of Bus Simulator 21,” then it is absolutely nothing like that.

Not that Bus Bound is bad, it is exactly what you think it is in terms of gameplay if you’ve played other simulators of its ilk. In that, there is very little to write home about. If you’re playing with a wheel and pedals, if you press the throttle and turn the wheel, it won’t surprise you to find the bus in-game moves and turns. I can’t spice that up any more than “bus does bus thing.”

That said, there are a couple of things I do want to have a bit of a moan about. Similar to the previous title from Stillalive Studios, there is that weird DLSS-style artifacting thing occasionally when moving the camera too much. Which doesn’t bother me all that much on its own. What bothered me throughout Bus Bound is either pop-in or something in the coding not quite working, which results in the bus hitting something. Though I’ve no idea what.

I think it was coming up to the Belvedere Station, and as I turned that corner to line myself up with the bus stop, I’d apparently hit something and leap 3-6 feet forward up onto the curb (sidewalk) and nearly through the bus stop itself. Did I hit a brick, a small child, a unicorn, or a traffic warden? I don’t know, but let’s hope either #2 or #4 out of those options is the answer. Truth be told, I couldn’t see it beforehand, and inspecting the area afterward, I still couldn’t tell you.

Don’t assume that’s a once-in-a-while thing either. I had the same happen at the Frontier Hub, too, and when looking at the screenshot, I still can’t tell. The bus is not kneeling, so it isn’t the bumper hitting the curbside; it is just a bit of code saying, “No, stop, you’ve clearly hit something… that isn’t there.” Much like evolution to the people of Utah, it is a mystery to me.

This wasn’t the only technical issue I’d found in my several hours of driving similar routes once per in-game day. In the tutorial routes, you’ll be told that if there is a car blocking the road, you should hit the horn, and they’ll happily move. Fantastic, does that work? Throughout the city as it is being redeveloped, you’ll find roadworks scattered from day to day, all of which is randomized, it seems, and on occasion, you’ll find traffic stopped dead. Can’t go over it, can’t go under it, if only you could go around it.

Surely I could honk the horn and get traffic moving again, right? Nope. I encountered a point on a route at night where it was one lane each way, cars parked on either side of the road, and roadworks up ahead. Traffic on my side isn’t moving because of that, and suddenly, because the AI traffic on the opposite side of the road is about as intelligent as people with actual driver’s licenses, they wouldn’t drive past me because I was too wide on my side of the yellow line. “So why didn’t you honk?” If you hit the horn too much, passengers complain. If you run too late because of being stuck in traffic, passengers also complain.

From a technical aspect, it is a bug, sure. But that wasn’t the first or only time that sort of thing would happen. I’ve had to Austin Powers my way out of traffic in front of me and traffic behind me to drive around someone who stopped in the middle of a six-lane intersection. Add this to the frustration of one run per day that counts towards progress, and it is not a fun gameplay system to work in, even when these bugs are rare.

Is Bus Bound nice to look at for what it is? Yes. Does it feel like a nice bus simulator game when driving the routes and nothing goes wrong? Yes. Despite that, doing one 12-25 minute route per in-game day isn’t why I’d want to play a bus simulation game like Bus Bound. You can play for a couple of hours, of course, but it is very stop-start. Personally, I’m left asking, who is that for? What is the benefit of stopping all gameplay to the whole simulation aspect of the gameplay?

As I say, I am confused at the concept because so much of the marketing is “from the creators of Bus Simulator 21,” but the only “simulation” part is occasionally driving a bus. Half the time, I am in menus to redo bus routes and progress, otherwise I’d be driving the same route after being forced into a menu unnecessarily. The execution of Bus Bound reminds me of what F1 bosses keep saying about sprint races: Young people don’t have the attention span for sustained periods of time. That’s not a positive comparison to be making.

Ultimately, I think Bus Bound is doing something I love and is rarely done, experimenting, but it is a poorly executed experiment. It takes a genre that is known for being played for long periods of time and forces you out of gameplay regularly to interact with menus just so you can eventually get back to the gameplay you are here for. Putting aside the technical issues, there is a good game in there, but it is lost, stuck in traffic, and not quite as fun as the studio’s previous outing.

A PC review copy of Bus Bound – Deluxe Edition was provided by Saber Interactive for this review.

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Bus Bound

$29.99+

6.5

Score

6.5/10

Pros

• Same simulation-style driving.
• A decent collection of buses to progressively unlock.

Cons

• A lot of stop-start gameplay.
• A number of technical problems.