As the sixth game in the series and a direct sequel to the 2018 game, Bus Simulator 21 is offering more of the same, but better. People who get a kick out of the idea of being behind the wheel of a massive bus and making sure things are running as they should are going to get a real kick out of this game.
How to Download Bus Simulator 21
To download the game from Steam, Playstation Store, or Microsoft Store, click on the Download button at the end of the review. Check out also our review of Bus Simulator 18, and Bus Simulator 16 – the previous games by stillalive studios.
The Game Review
The first thing to note is that we have a brand-new city to drive around in called, Angel Shores. Angel Shores is a fictional city, but it is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and that is pretty cool. It is a large and very diverse city that brings with it a whole bunch of navigation, scheduling, and traffic problems for you to deal with.
As well as Angel Shores, Bus Simulator 21 also brings the map from Bus Simulator 18, European Seaside Valle map as well. This is not just a copy and pastes job either, some changes have been made to make it look better and also offer players a new challenge as well.
There are more licensed busses than ever before in Bus Simulator 21. You have over 30 busses that you can drive and for the first time, double-decker and electric busses are added to the mix. The driving takes a little while to get used to, but it feels more skill-based and patience is really the key are rushing is always going to lead to a whole bunch of costly mistakes.
While driving your passengers from point a to point b is clearly the main goal of what you have to do. Bus Simulator 21 offers a very interesting and more refined manager mode. Here you have to plan various bus routes, check out different bus dealers to buy new busses, keep your busses running and make sure that the books are balanced all the while delivering a professional public transport service.
Driving the busses is of course what you will want to do, but as you expand and have more and more busses operating at the same time, you can take a more hands-off approach. The cool thing about this is that you can jump into any one of your busses at any time and take direct control of it.
I like how Bus Simulator 21 throws a lot of curveballs your way to keep you on your toes. More advanced AI in terms of the pedestrians and other vehicles on the street as well as troublesome weather can lead to issues with you keeping your bus service running nice and smooth.
Visually, I have to say that not a ton has changed since the last game, but it still looks decent enough. There is a fair bit of customization that you can do here to each bus such as changing advertising and various colors. It is worth noting that there is multiplayer available in Bus Simulator 21, but I never got the chance to experience it while I was playing it for this review.
I think it is more than fair to say that if you liked Bus Simulator 18, you will love Bus Simulator 21. Granted it is not reinventing the wheel with what it is doing, but it is certainly a bigger and better experience than what we had before. Still, if driving busses is not your idea of fun and the last few games never interested you, then I do not see this one winning you over either.
