Train Sim World 6 – A Frustrating, Flawed, and Favorite Simulation

There is a unique romance to the railway. It’s the deep, resonant rumble of a diesel-electric engine, the rhythmic clack-clack over the tracks, and the immense, tangible weight of pulling a mile-long freight train over a mountain pass. It’s a hobby of precision, patience, and passion. Dovetail Games has built an empire on this passion with its Train Sim World franchise. And now, right on schedule, Train Sim World 6 has pulled into the station. It brings new routes, new features, and the promise of new skills to master. But it also carries heavy baggage.

For the sixth year in a row, the community is being asked to move to a new platform, redownload hundreds of gigabytes of content, and reset the clock. This annual release schedule has become the ghost at the feast, a source of deep frustration for a dedicated player base. We’ve stepped into the cab of this latest iteration, armed with the free starter pack and a healthy dose of community feedback, to see if the journey is worth the price of the ticket, or if this franchise is truly running on fumes.

The Elephant in the Timetable

Before we even look at a locomotive, we have to address the business model. Train Sim World 6 continues the deeply controversial tradition of an annual, iterative release. For years, this meant repurchasing the base game just to carry your mountain of expensive DLC forward. This year, Dovetail Games has finally, finally, made a concession: the Free Starter Pack. This is, unequivocally, a good move. It provides the core game and the Training Center for free, allowing new players to enter the hobby by only buying the DLC they want. It also, crucially, allows veteran players to carry their existing library over without buying a “base game” they already own five times over.

But this olive branch doesn’t fix the core problem. Why is this a new game at all? The UI has a new color palette and a few new features, but it runs on the exact same engine with the same core graphics as TSW 2020. A new, standalone release forces players to redownload their entire library—a colossal task. More cynically, as the community has pointed out, it resets the game’s review score on Steam every single year, wiping the slate clean of valid criticism and bug reports. It’s a practice that feels less like a necessary evolution and more like a cynical marketing ploy, breeding deep distrust in a community that just wants to enjoy their hobby.

The New Itinerary

If you can look past the business model, TSW6 does offer three new, diverse routes in its Standard Edition (with more locomotives in the Deluxe). The first is NJ TRANSIT’S Morristown Line, a bustling American commuter route between the Big Apple and Dover. Piloting the classic Arrow III EMU or the modern ALP-46 with MultiLevel cars through the suburbs of New Jersey has a specific, authentic charm, especially for those familiar with the line.

Next, we head to the Riviera Line in the UK. This scenic route soars along the iconic Dawlish Sea Wall and dives through the Devon Banks. Driving the “Intercity” Class 802 and Class 150/2 “Sprinter” between Exeter and Paignton is a visual treat and a classic British railway experience. Finally, Bahnstrecke Leipzig – Dresden expands on a previous German route, offering high-speed running on the oldest long-distance railway in Germany with modern ICE-T and BR 442 trains. The routes themselves are, as usual, the stars of the show, meticulously recreated and offering unique operational challenges.

Expecting the Unexpected

The core gameplay loop of Train Sim World remains its greatest strength. This is a “sim-lite” in the best way—deep enough to be challenging, but accessible enough that you don’t need an engineering degree. You can operate freight, passenger, and steam trains (though no new steam content is present), or even take on the role of a conductor. The new headline feature for TSW6 is “Expect the Unexpected.” This introduces random events, faults, and delays. A signal might take longer to clear, a speed restriction could pop up, or your locomotive might suffer an equipment failure that you have to resolve. This adds a much-needed layer of dynamic challenge to what could often be a sterile, predictable run.

Other immersion features, like platform and in-train announcements, add to the passenger-service ambiance. Conductor Mode is a welcome return, allowing you to check tickets and manage passenger doors at a different, more relaxed pace. And for the creative, the Creators Club continues to be a powerful tool, allowing you to design your own liveries and train formations to use in Free Roam or the Scenario Planner. When you are in the cab, focused on your run, TSW6 is as engaging as it has ever been.

A Dated Engine, Running on Hope

Here is where the polish begins to flake off. Train Sim World 6 is still running on the long-outdated Unreal Engine 4. Five years on from its debut in TSW 2020, the graphics are simply substandard for a 2025 release. While Dovetail’s artists do a magnificent job modeling the trains themselves—they are beautiful, detailed, and authentic—the worlds they move through are not. Textures for grass, trees, track ballast, and overhead wires constantly and distractingly pop into view, shattering the very immersion the simulation works so hard to build.

Performance is, to put it mildly, abysmal. On a high-end PC capable of running Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing at a smooth 60-100 FPS, TSW6 is a chaotic mess. The framerate will swing wildly from 80 FPS in the countryside to a chugging 20 FPS in major stations, regardless of settings. It’s poorly optimized, and it’s been this way for years. The fact that Dovetail still sells this game at full price on last-generation consoles like the PS4 and Xbox One—where it runs with reduced timetables and crippling performance—feels nothing short of predatory.

The Ghost in the Machine

Worse than the dated graphics are the bugs. Train Sim World is infamous for them, and this release is no different. Pre-release streams from Dovetail itself showcased game-breaking glitches just 24 hours before launch. And while new bugs are one thing, the old ones are what truly show the lack of care. Bugs that were reported five years ago in TSW 2020 still exist in this “new” iteration. Cars drive through crossing gates. Throttles get stuck. Random derailments occur.

This isn’t a case of “all games have bugs.” This is a systemic failure of quality assurance. It gives the impression that the company’s sole focus is on pumping out the next £29.99 DLC, leaving optimization and bug-fixing as an afterthought. The user is, effectively, a paying playtester for a product that is never truly finished before the next version is announced.

A Destination for the Dedicated

Train Sim World 6 is the definition of a love-hate relationship. The core simulation is compelling, the new routes are enjoyable, and the hobby itself is deeply rewarding. But it is trapped within an abhorrent business model, haunted by five-year-old bugs, and struggling on a dated engine that cripples performance. Dovetail Games seems to care only about the player’s wallet, not their enjoyment.

And yet, despite all this, it remains a favorite for many, including this reviewer. Why? Because the passion for the subject matter is strong enough, we install over 100 mods to fix the graphics and tolerate the flaws. The Free Starter Pack is a welcome change, but it’s not enough. Dovetail needs to stop this annual churn, rebrand to a single “Train Sim World” platform, and focus on fixing the foundations. As it stands, TSW6 is a game we can only recommend to the most dedicated hobbyist, or to new players who stick to the free pack and buy DLC on sale.

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Pros:

• The core train simulation gameplay is as engaging and deep as ever.
• The Free Starter Pack is a consumer-friendly move, allowing players to make DLC-only purchases.
• Three new, diverse, and well-made routes (NJ, UK, Germany).
• New “Unexpected Events” and Conductor Mode add welcome dynamic gameplay.
• Train models themselves are beautifully and authentically detailed.

Cons:

• Abhorrent annual release model feels like a cash grab and wipes reviews.
• Runs on the dated Unreal Engine 4 with substandard graphics.
• Constant, immersion-breaking texture pop-in.
• The performance is appalling, with massive, frequent frame drops.
• Riddled with bugs, including some that have existed for five years.
• Old DLC is not updated to modern standards.