Related: Check out the best simulation games on PC It’s a deliberate, meticulous experience that wildly diverges from the business management-focused approach of Railroad Tycoon or Railway Empire.
You’ll sit in the cabin of a locomotive, pulling levers and turning knobs in a first-person perspective. If you don’t like the wide, zoomed-out view of railroad management games, then Train Simulator is the antidote. It can be a bit like spinning plates, but players who can overcome Train Fever’s steep learning curve will find a hugely satisfying PC simulation game.Įstablished in 2009, the Train Simulator series tasks players with operating trains from the inside. You’ll also need to build city roads to ensure carriages containing those goods can reach your stations. In addition to building train routes and stations, you’ll need to manage the transport of goods from mines, forests, farms, and more. Train Fever looks beyond the rails and tasks players with establishing a transport empire. In all, this is the Railroad Tycoon formula in its shiniest, most polished form. Being able to set trains to automatically load the most profitable and in-demand cargo reduces the amount of micromanagement you need to do, and the overworld button makes it easy to see where in your network to deliver certain goods for maximum profit. A complete economic rework rounds out the major changes, making this one of the best strategy games for train enthusiasts.Ī few quality-of-life changes over its predecessor make Railroad Tycoon 3 an overall smoother experience, too. It also upped the number of available locomotives to 60, the most in any Railroad Tycoon game. The third entry in the franchise saw a change to 3D graphics, dropping the grid-based track building of the previous games.
In 2003, the Railroad Tycoon series stepped into the modern age. If you prefer old games with grid views to 3D graphics then this is the Railroad tycoon for you. Railroad Tycoon II set the bar for the train management genre and remains a benchmark for quality even today. There are many different scenarios, each with their own goals and rewards, and you can buy and operate more than 50 different types of locomotive engines. For instance, rather than just one century, it covers the entire history of railroads, from inception to the present day. Railroad Tycoon II takes what was great about its predecessor and expands on it in every way.
Using a starting capital of $1 million, you build stations, lay track, set cargo prices, buy new engines, and grow your network.įull steam ahead: Here are the best Western games on PCįor as revolutionary as it was, there were a few rough edges that were largely sanded down by its 1998 sequel. The brainchild of game design legend Sid Meier, Railroad Tycoon gave you the stovepipe hat of a burgeoning mogul and made you responsible for managing the major aspects of a growing rail empire in the early-to-mid 1800s. The first Railroad Tycoon game, released in 1990, is credited for founding the railroad management genre. Starting off small, you’ll work your way up until you have a network of trains and stations, while strategically managing your workforce, profits, and allying with neighbouring train companies. It does get into the details of trains, so there’s plenty to admire in Rail Nation, and it’s free-to-play. It focuses on all the details, economic solutions, and power plays that come with running your very own railway empire.
If you want to mix your love for trains with strategy then Rail Nation is less of a train simulation game, and more of a management game.