Simulation games are becoming increasingly more eccentric, it would seem, with developers romanticizing mundane and back-breaking manual labour as some kind of escapist fantasy. We find it endlessly fascinating when they do succeed, however, as anyone who has played PowerWash Simulator can attest.

Here's a new one for you, though. Train Life - A Railway Simulator promises to let you play as both driver and company manager, and it will fall to you to not only drive passengers and goods across 10 European countries, but maintain the machinery, hire conductors, manage their contracts, and optimise which routes you take, ensuring everything gets where it needs to go, and in a timely manner.

The latest DLC for the game introduces the legendary Orient Express, which will need to be handled the old-fashioned way. Players will need to shovel coal in order to power the behemoth and engage the regulator handle manually to get the thing moving. There will be unique scenarios specifically tailored to the Orient Express, and we would have to hope at least one would involve a certain Belgian detective and a seemingly unsolvable murder mystery...

What do you think of Train Life - A Railway Simulator, and of simulation games in general? Full steam ahead into the comments section below.,

[source youtu.be]