Gaming / First impressions

Transport Fever 3: A Logistics Game That Clicks With Me

Disclosure: I wasn’t paid to write this review. These are my own opinions, based on my experience playing Transport Fever 3.

Transport Fever 3 released on September 29, 2026. I played the first Transport Fever a lot, spent a little time with the second, and now I’m getting pretty hooked on the third.

Working in transportation and logistics, this kind of game is right up my alley. Apparently, spending my working hours around logistics isn’t enough—I want to come home and figure out how to move things around there, too.

My ADHD loves it. There’s something about watching everything move, getting goods and people from point A to point B, and figuring out how to make it all work that really clicks with me.

What the game is about

If you’re unfamiliar with the series, the idea is to build a network that transports goods and passengers. Depending on when you start, you can begin with horse-drawn transport and work your way toward buses, trucks, trains, ships, and aircraft. The challenge is figuring out how those connections should work together.

You aren’t building a city in the same way you would in Cities: Skylines. Your focus is transportation, and the cities grow around the connections and deliveries you provide.

That distinction matters, but this still scratches an itch I’d hoped Cities: Skylines II would satisfy for me. I want to plan routes, watch things move, and figure out how to get everything where it needs to go.

What’s stood out so far

I didn’t play the second game nearly as much as the first, so these are my impressions rather than an exhaustive comparison.

One thing I appreciate is the individual people moving around the world. Citizens have homes, jobs, and places to go. There’s a reason behind their journeys, and I like knowing the passengers moving through my network actually have somewhere they need to be.

Industry pickup points have also stood out to me. Having pickup points at industries instead of needing to place my own at every location makes getting things moving feel more convenient. The warehouse changes have been welcome, too.

Visually, the game feels like a big improvement. When part of the enjoyment is simply watching your network run, having a better-looking world to watch makes a difference.

I’ve tried all four map types—dry, tropical, temperate, and subarctic—but I haven’t made it deep into the endgame. I’m one of those players who keeps restarting to try a different approach. I’ll get something going, think of another way I could have done it, and start again.

Food delivery: something I initially missed

At first, I thought some cities didn’t need food. After looking more closely, I realized every city does—I just hadn’t spotted it.

What differs is how much work it takes to supply the food each city needs, especially early on. Meat, for example, requires delivering grain to produce it before you can transport the meat to the city. Vegetables and fish can be picked up and delivered directly.

That changes how I think about my starting routes. Some food deliveries are straightforward to set up, while others need a little more planning and infrastructure.

Learning how unloading works

One thing that confused me was delivering cargo to multiple stops.

I was trying to split brick deliveries across three stops, but the first was taking more than I expected, the second wasn’t getting anything, and the last was unloading everything left.

I read the unloading percentage as how much cargo I wanted taken off the vehicle. My understanding after experimenting is that the setting I was using referred to how much I wanted left on the train or truck afterward. Once I approached it that way, the deliveries made more sense to me.

I didn’t find that particularly clear while playing. To be fair, maybe completing the entire tutorial would have saved me some confusion. But I digress.

How it runs on my PC

I’m playing Transport Fever 3 on High graphics settings, and it runs very well on my PC. For reference, here’s my setup:

I haven’t reached the endgame with a huge transport network yet, so I’m interested to see how performance holds up as things get busier.

A few bugs and some confusing UI

I’ve encountered a few bugs, including buttons that didn’t seem to work, and I’ve had one crash.

I’ve also noticed a graphical glitch with tunnels when building two railway tracks next to each other. Sometimes the visuals glitch out, but it doesn’t affect gameplay. It just looks a little strange.

There have also been moments where the interface didn’t behave how I expected. The big blue check mark at the bottom of the Supply Industry window looked like a button to dismiss the alert. I kept clicking it, but nothing happened.

That wasn’t necessarily a bug—just me assuming a check mark meant something different. It’s a small detail, but it confused me while playing.

Keeping the neighbors happy

Getting the trains running was one thing. Keeping the neighbors happy about the noise was another.

Noise complaints have been a recurring issue in my cities—something I’m still working on as I figure out my network. Moving people and goods is only part of the challenge. Apparently, everyone would also appreciate it if I did that a little more quietly.

What’s included in the Deluxe Edition?

If you’re looking at the Deluxe Edition, it includes the base game plus:

• Six extra vehicles: Concorde, London Bus, Trans-Europe Express, Peterbilt 359, Hong Kong Tram, and Sikorsky S-76 Spirit helicopter.
• Two landmarks: the Eiffel Tower and Taj Mahal.
• Four wildlife additions: orcas, Komodo dragons, boar families, and bison.
• Three handcrafted maps: Redrock Bends, Northern Gates, and Emerald Shores.
• Additional extras: Tycoon Cars, three discoverable “Fun Elements,” and soundtracks from previous games in the franchise.

Where to buy

You can buy Transport Fever 3 through its official Steam store page, where both the Standard and Deluxe editions are listed.

My thoughts so far

Even with the bugs and moments of confusion, I’m really enjoying Transport Fever 3. It gives me the logistics experience I was looking for: figuring out a route, watching it work, and immediately thinking about what I could improve next.

These are still my early impressions. I’ve got more to learn and plenty left to explore—assuming I can stop restarting long enough to get there.