Transport Fever 3 Is Getting Deeper Without Becoming Hard for the Sake of It — A VGTimes Interview from gamescom 2026

At gamescom 2026, VGTimes sat down with Urban Games Community Manager Sam Bennett and took an extended look at a work-in-progress build of Transport Fever 3. The interview took place inside a large themed bus parked next to Urban Games' helicopter. Bennett told us that interviews had actually been held inside the helicopter at the previous gamescom, but it became far too hot, so the team opted for a much cozier setup this time around.

Transport Fever 3 is an economic strategy game and transport simulator in which players build railways and roads, establish sea and air routes, move passengers and cargo, and watch the cities and industries connected by their transport networks develop.

We discussed why Urban Games doesn't want to break the foundations of Transport Fever 2, how much deeper town simulation has become, how contracts work, why players now have much more control over junctions and traffic lights, what landmarks actually do, why modding remains so important, and how close the game is to release.

VGTimes: I've played a lot of Transport Fever 2. How much does the third game change the familiar formula?

Sam Bennett: We haven't changed the fundamental game because people like the fundamental game.

For us, it's more about not breaking what already works and making it better.

We spend a lot of time looking at player comments and at the problems people had with the previous game.

But we don't want to simply say, "Right, let's make it brutally hard."

There will always be experienced players who work out the fastest way to make the maximum amount of money.

So rather than just making the economy harder for everybody, we want to give those players additional things to think about.

VGTimes: How much deeper is the simulation compared to Transport Fever 2?

Sam Bennett: Players can now really change how a town is going to grow.

Different districts have different needs, and you can see how well those needs are being met.

For example, this town isn't receiving commercial goods at all, so its commercial district is tiny.

Its industrial district, on the other hand, is pretty large. And because we're delivering a lot of passengers, the corresponding part of the town is growing well too.

Different districts within the same town can therefore grow very differently depending on the network you build and what you deliver.

Sam Bennett: Towns have a progression value. Internally, we sometimes call it XP, although that's not really the right description.

Every successful delivery helps the town. Once you're serving it well enough, it can grow again.

But that value can also move in the opposite direction.

If pollution or noise is terrible, if goods take too long to arrive, or passengers take far too long to reach their destinations, the town starts reacting negatively.

Then you have to fix those problems.

We really want players to respect the environment and think about the quality of life in the towns they're serving, rather than simply maximizing profit.

During the demonstration, Bennett showed us the expanded road and traffic-management tools.

Sam Bennett: You have much more control over the road network now.

You can manually define directions at junctions, decide where traffic is allowed to go from particular lanes, disable pedestrian crossings where you don't want them, and configure traffic-light phases.

I prefer doing this while the game is paused so I don't ruin everything while I'm setting it up.

VGTimes: Can you create different rules for the morning, daytime and evening?

Sam Bennett: No. Time in Transport Fever still works in an abstract fashion.

The game spans enormous periods of history, so we don't try to tie systems like this to a literal morning, afternoon and evening schedule.

At one point during the demo, Bennett himself noticed a recently added tool in the interface and briefly seemed surprised to find it there.

It turned out to be a sound barrier. Players can place these alongside roads to reduce the impact of traffic noise on nearby residents.

Transport Fever 3 also includes additional tools connected to noise, pollution and traffic management.

Another useful option allows players to prevent the simulation from automatically constructing buildings on a chosen piece of land. That means you can reserve space for a future road or another piece of transport infrastructure before a town expands into it.

VGTimes: What else is there for players who want additional objectives?

Sam Bennett: We have a contract system.

For example, you might get two in-game years to complete a particular contract. One of the ones we showed offered 33 million as a reward.

But if you accept a contract and fail it, you'll have to repay the money, and there can be additional negative consequences as well.

So there's a risk-versus-reward element to it.

Contracts aren't only about money, either. They can also suggest something for the player to do next.

If a contract asks you to move passengers from one location to another, that gives you a clear starting idea: "Okay, I'll connect these two places."

If you're not interested in that contract, you can choose to do something else.

The demo also included landmarks, special structures that can appear in towns.

Sam Bennett: They're not just decorative buildings.

Once a landmark is completed, it can provide a particular benefit to the town. One of the examples we showed reduces traffic noise.

So landmarks are part of the town simulation rather than simply visual decoration.

VGTimes: How important is modding for Transport Fever 3?

Sam Bennett: Modding is hugely important to us.

Mod creators are very talented at balancing their vehicles against the ones that are already in the game.

If you're really into a particular type of real-world train, you can end up with 30 or 40 different versions installed.

After you've played like that for a while, you start forgetting which vehicles are mods and which originally came with the game. You simply get used to playing your own version of Transport Fever.

You think, "I'll just install one," and half an hour later you've got 300 mods installed.

It's a great way of extending the life of the game.

Sam Bennett: We're also trying to make creating mods more accessible.

For simple things, you only need a very small amount of scripting. We've prepared four tutorials to help people understand the process.

You can start with something very basic, create a small visual asset, add the necessary information and get it into the game.

Everybody who has ever created a mod started by doing something really simple. Then they moved on to more complicated things.

VGTimes: What state is the game in right now?

Sam Bennett: We've been doing a lot of optimization, including work around the minimum-spec hardware.

We've actually done better there than I expected.

Like I said earlier, we're still working on the UI, so what you're seeing right now isn't final.

We're also heading into a very large testing phase, and it's incredibly useful to have real players telling us what they think.

If you have a crash, that's useful. If you can make it crash in exactly the same place over and over again, that's even better.

Then we have something reproducible that we can actually fix.

You can never predict every way different people are going to play the game. That's why having lots of real players test it is so valuable.

VGTimes: So is it ready?

Sam Bennett: It's certainly very playable already, but that's how development works. You fix one thing and then find something else.

You could always spend more time polishing a game.

But I think it's going to be a very good, very fun game.

Transport Fever 3 launches on September 29, 2026, for PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. Are you planning to play it? What do you think of games like this in general? Share your thoughts in the comments.

VGTimes has been operating since 2011 and over that time has attended dozens of exhibitions and festivals, where our journalists have gathered a wealth of exclusive material. For example, in 2019 we attended a closed showing of Cyberpunk 2077 at gamescom, in 2017 we prepared a photo report from WG Fest, in 2020 we were at the largest gaming event in Central Asia — CAGS, and we have visited IgroMir several times, where we met Hideo Kojima and other famous developers. In 2024 we traveled to the Land of the Rising Sun for TGS 2024, where we were amazed by the scale of the Tokyo event. In 2025 we witnessed one of Asia's premier gaming exhibitions — ChinaJoy in Shanghai. We also made it to the Thai edition of gamescom 2025 in Bangkok, and at the start of this year attended CES 2026 in Las Vegas and later Computex 2026 in Taipei.