Ukrainian studio Fishing Planet LLC, the authors of the popular fishing simulator Fishing Planet, has presented a new game – train simulator Train Planet.

According to the game’s description on Steam, Train Planet was originally an amateur project of several enthusiasts, train fans, and real drivers who wanted to transfer their experience, impressions, and emotions from the real railroad to a PC simulator. The game features detailed recreations of locomotives and railroad operations, real locations and stations, real tracks and recognizable landscapes that allow players to test and improve their train driving skills. After a long internal development period, the authors now want to continue to develop and improve the project together with the community.

It seems that the authors of Train Planet are planning to challenge the RailWorks / Train Simulator / Train Sim World games from the British studio Dovetail Games, which have been dominating the railway simulation market for more than 15 years. The latest installment in the series, Train Sim World 4, was released in September 2023 and is DLC compatible with all previous TSW installments. Interestingly, in addition to railroad simulators, Dovetail Games also develops fishing simulators, so the studios will now compete in two markets.

It is worth noting that the simulation part of Train Planet is the responsibility of the ZDSimulator team, which is still working on a high-quality but outdated railway transport simulator of the same name. At one time, even professional simulators for training drivers were allegedly built on the basis of ZDSimulator. It is a pity that for a long time this predominantly Ukrainian team paid too much attention to the Russian market. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, ZDSimulator has been focusing on Ukrainian railways.

Judging by the screenshots, Train Planet currently features the railroad and locomotives of Germany, i.e. the legendary Deutsche Bahn. And the game’s graphics are already significantly ahead of Train Sim World 4. On the Train Planet page on Steam, you can download a demo version of the game (in the right column) and see the level of simulation and graphics for yourself. But be careful, there are bugs.

The date and format of Train Planet’s release on Steam will be announced later.

As a reminder, the PC version of the studio’s first game, the free-to-play Fishing Planet, was released on PC back in 2015. Later, the game appeared on PlayStation 4 and Xbox. In April 2022, the game was released on iOS, and in July 2022 – on Android. The Steam version of the game still attracts 4-5 thousand fishing fans every day.

UPDATE

As Fishing Planet explains, the statement that the ZDSimulator team is responsible for the simulation part of Train Planet is not true. The game’s development team was formed completely from scratch. There is only one developer who has previously worked with ZDSimulator. At the same time, ZD in the name of the simulator means “Railroad”. This is a Ukrainian project that was created by Ukrainians and featured Ukrainian railroads to train Ukrainian railroaders. Russia, as we know, steals everything it can, and “fans” have created additional mods that have nothing to do with the original developers.

Fishing Planet is an all-Ukrainian team with unequivocally patriotic views. Fishing Planet helps the Armed Forces of Ukraine, our team members serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, one of the developers, the chief designer of the Fishing Planet mobile version, Volodymyr Yezhov, died near Bakhmut defending the country in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We immediately stopped sales in Russia. The studio’s position here is unequivocal and unchanged. Train Planet’s chief producer is also serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces right now as we speak.

Mini interview with Fishing Planet

Will Train Planet be free like Fishing Planet?

We are moving in the direction of Free-to-play. Given our previous successful experience, we hope that we will succeed.

Are there any plans for Ukrainian localization and Ukrainian locations and locomotives?

Please note that you have only seen a demo version, which is why it is currently only in English. Yes, we are planning Ukrainian localization, potentially a network of Ukrainian roads and Ukrainian locomotives.

Is the game made by a Kyiv studio or some new studio?

This is a new team, entirely Ukrainian.

And finally: will you beat TSW?

As Taras Hryhorovych wrote, if you fight, you will prevail! And we will be very grateful for the support of our fellow journalists. We have big plans!