When was the last time you appreciated a bus? Public transit is an essential system for many cities all around the globe and one that becomes invisible the moment it works. The people that keep it moving? They fall into a blind spot; essential, unacknowledged and quietly holding the city together at the seams.
In Bus Bound, available now on Xbox Series X|S, we wanted to place the player at the center of that blind spot.
Public Service as Skill
If you put the concept of public transit under a microscope and zoom in carefully, you may realize that the ability to drive something the size and shape of a bus through a busy metropolitan area during rush-hour traffic takes serious skills. Consider every time you’ve been cut off in traffic and had to slam on the brakes. Now imagine doing it in a vehicle is 40ft long, somewhere around 35,000 pounds and with 50 passengers, many of them standing.
One of the core goals of Bus Bound is to allow you the opportunity to really experience the size and weight of these machines; to hone-in on what it takes to control a bus full of your fellow humans as you navigate the often-unpredictable nature of heavy traffic or of infrastructural obstacles like breakdowns or roadside construction on your way from point A to Point B with your passengers carefully watching. Good driving will get rewarded, while bad driving will be penalized and slow down your progression.
To accomplish this goal, we have placed a high emphasis on the finer details of the driving experience; the way that the buses look, feel and sound when you drive them. Each detail, from the way that the size and width of the wheels interact with the road to the button clicks, engine noises or the hiss of the brakes when stopping to drop off your passengers, was designed with one goal in mind: to make the driving experience feel authentic and real.
The City on Your Shoulders
Progression in Bus Bound is directly tied to your ability to service your passengers and optimize your routes. You begin in one district with a small handful of buses and a mission to make the case that not only is public transportation necessary: it is also worth investing in.
Morning, noon or night in rain or shine, you will be tasked with optimizing your runs and upgrading each of the city’s 7 districts. As you unlock new buses of various sizes and shapes, you will notice a pattern emerging – that certain places in the city are busier at different times of day or in different weather conditions, making choosing a bus a strategic decision as much as it is an aesthetic one. Going through rush-hour traffic in the business district of New Heights, for example, will lead to denser, less-predictable traffic and a higher potential passenger count better suited for a full-sized bus such as the Bluebird Sigma or the NFI Excelsior. Alternatively, going through the educational district of Ashtree at night may not be as busy and you can opt for the Letenda Electrip or Vicinity Lightning to easier maneuver around tight turns. Once unlocked, you’re of course given the freedom to choose the bus you like the most; just be conscious of the tactical decision you’re making and that your ability to safely deliver passengers on time is the underlying rhythm of the city’s infrastructure program.
An Everyday Hero
We chose to base our game’s fictional city on real-life US cities like Nashville, Tennessee and Asheville, North Carolina to take advantage of their sweeping asphalt highways with multiple lanes that aren’t common in most bus driving games. This presents us with the chance to explore new gameplay opportunities and utilize that space to develop the city itself as it grows into a pedestrian-friendly paradise for public transit. Spaces like parking lots suddenly transform into busy cultural hubs like plazas and parks for the citizens; traffic gets pushed out of certain areas in favor of bus lanes, reducing the region’s congestion but placing higher expectations on the time you have to run your routes.
Much like the city’s real-life inspirations, the ability to sustain and grow is the sum total of thousands of small, unglamorous decisions made correctly each and every day by a network of collaborators all moving in lockstep to keep the city in motion. In Bus Bound, you are the one taking action in that collaboration process. In a word, an everyday hero; the one that makes sure someone else makes it to their doctor’s appointment on time.
Keep the city in motion one stop at a time – Bus Bound is out now.
Bus Bound – Deluxe Edition
Saber Interactive Inc.
Players who preorder any edition of Bus Bound will receive an exclusive Day 1 unlock of the Horizon Hydrogen Gen 2 – a modern bus from the Horizon lineup, and a pack of 3 modern skins!
The Deluxe Edition of Bus Bound includes the base game plus an additional unlock of the Horizon Speed 40ft–a retro-styled bus from yesteryear, and an additional pack of 3 retro-themed skins!
Additionally Deluxe Edition owners will receive the Bus Pass which guarantees players day 1 access to three content expansions the moment they become available! (Expected in 2026)
Bus Bound
Saber Interactive Inc.
Players who preorder any edition of Bus Bound will receive an exclusive Day 1 unlock of the Horizon Hydrogen Gen 2 – a modern bus from the Horizon lineup, and a pack of 3 modern skins!
Step into the driver’s seat in Bus Bound, the latest title from the creators of Bus Simulator 21. Explore a vibrant city behind the wheel of officially licensed buses, and help transform it into a pedestrian-friendly paradise—one stop at a time
The post Become an Everyday Hero in Bus Bound appeared first on Xbox Wire.
