The next iteration of Train Sim World is here, available on Xbox, PlayStation, Steam and Epic Games – but what do we think?

Dovetail Games has kindly sent over a copy of Train Sim World 5: Special Edition. This will set you back £104.99 – but the game does start from £39.99. However, what does that price get you?

Well, the £39.99 will get you the updates for the game along with conductor mode as well as the three routes: San Bernadino Line, Frankfurt – Fulda and London Euston – Milton Keynes Central.

Deluxe Edition costs £59.99 and on top of the upgrades and routes will also add the Avanti West Coast Pendolino, the Flixtrain 193 Vectron and Cajon Pass.

Special Edition costs £104.99 but adds even more content including the Bakerloo Line, the Suffragette Line, New York – Trenton and Bremen – Oldenburg.

There is a level to please everyone and a Free Starter Pack that gives you access to the Training Center that lets you test the fundamentals of locomotive operation.

As always, content from previous Train Sim World games, including a save game profile, simply transfers over to the new game, so you can enjoy racking up the miles with Flying Scotsman on the fast WCML if you so wish!

Last year saw the implementation of free roam mode, and this is still available – this is still one of our favourite modes to use to play around with routes to your hearts content.

Optimisation and Detail

As always, Train Sim World is highly detailed and the routes are getting better and better with lots of trackside detail.

On the whole, Train Sim World 5 has run well. Being from the UK, our first drive was on the WCML, and whilst the majority of the route runs well, we have found issues at Milton Keynes and around Wembley – London Euston, which saw FPS dip to around 20 (our average frame rates on other routes and older routes such as Blackpool Branches tends to be around 50-60fps).

However, having been in discussion with Dovetail Games – they have told us that updates are being planned to better optimise the route as they have found issues with some PC specs/combinations that do cause frame rate drops.

The other routes run well, and the Avanti West Coast Pendolino / Class 350 runs well on other lines and at the Training Center.

Animations in the new version of the game are all smooth as are textures and sounds.

One of the big features of the Pendolino is its tilting feature, which is great to see in action!

General Gameplay

The review will mainly focus on the West Coast Mainline Route as that is the one that is the most familiar to us.

The other two routes included with the base game are fantastic to drive and are both highly detailed – however, we do not have any local knowledge of these routes to compare to.

The WCML isn’t the first ‘fast speed’ line to come to the Train Sim World 5 franchise, we had the East Coast Main Line last year which was great, but we felt the route was a ‘set to 125 and leave it’ kind of route.

Whilst the WCML is a fast-paced route, one of the main advantages of this route over the ECML is that, especially around London, there are plenty of different speed limits that need to be adhered to.

Additionally, we also have the Class 350 available which operates stopping services between London and Milton Keynes, allowing you to call at places such as Tring, Hemel Hempstead, and Harrow and Wealdstone.

On top of this, if you have previously purchased or are purchasing the Special Edition, you can drive the London Overground route from Watford to London, which has stops nearly every mile and provides great playability.

The scenarios and timetable features provide engaging gameplay throughout, with high-quality graphics and sound to add to the atmosphere.

WCML (as well as the rest of the TSW5 routes) also supports free roam, allowing you to spawn any train you have in your collection, how about spawning in a new livery in the creator club?

On selected trains, you can also become the train conductor, allowing you to check tickets, operate the doors and move baggage out of the gangway. I didn’t find it easy to find out how to enable conductor mode, it is under the timetable mode, I would have liked to have seen this split into one of the main menus.

The conductor mode is an additional feature which is fun to play around with, but does come with a few small bugs (see below).

Other improvements to Train Sim World 5 is a new Route Hopping feature which allows you to change between different routes that share a common location, which will be great for Just Trains’ Blackpool Branches and the upcoming Preston – Carlisle release.

Photo mode now allows you to set live weather and time of day and a Fast Travel feature that allows you to immediately travel to a station on the route.

Any Bad Points?

As we mentioned above, the only issue we had was with the WCML route but with a fix in the plan, we have to reiterate that this could only be an issue with our PC spec combination and may not be apparent on your Xbox / Playstation for example.

There are a few small bugs with conductor mode, we played conductor mode with the Class 350 on the West Coast Main Line and noticed that whilst the buttons to close the doors work, it doesn’t prompt you to close the local / guard door, and just skips to signalling to the driver to set off.

The other small minor bug is that the prompt that someone needs their ticket checking often gets hidden behind a window and makes it less obvious to see.

Final Thoughts

To bring this review to a close, what do we think of Train Sim World 5.

The addition of conductor mode, three new routes, new locomotives / units and a general update, this is an excellent upgrade to the Train Sim World franchise – in this upgrade pack, there really is something for everyone to enjoy! We enjoy having more British routes to drive and really enjoy getting our tilt on with the Pendolino.

Bearing in mind that routes sell for around £30 for both Dovetail and third party addons for Train Sim World and Train Sim Classic, we think the special edition provides a lot of content for the money.

Would I recommend Train Sim World 5 – the answer has to be a resounding yes!

I think if you are an avid TSW user who likely has some of the routes found in the special edition, I think the Deluxe Edition would be your sweet spot for price and features but if you are a newcomer to the game, then the Special Edition is excellent value for money.

Want to see the route in action? Make sure to follow the RailAdvent Twitch channel to see when I go live streaming the route: twitch.tv/railadvent

You can purchase a copy of Train Sim World 5 on Steam, Xbox, Playstation and on the Epic Games Store