''Bus Simulator 21'' is a bus simulator game developed by Stillalive Studios and published by Astragon Entertainment. It is developed on the Unreal Engine 4. It is the sixth in the ''

Bus Simulator ''Bus Simulator'' is a vehicle-simulation video game series developed by Icebytes, Contendo Media, TML Studios and Stillalive Studios, and published by Astragon Entertainment. The franchise was introduced in 2007 by Astragon Entertainment. The ...

'' series, and is the direct sequel to ''

Bus Simulator 18 ''Bus Simulator 18'' (also known as ''Bus Simulator'' on consoles) is a vehicle simulation game, bus simulator game developed by Stillalive Studios and published by Astragon, Astragon Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox On ...

''. The game has been released on 7 September 2021 for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in ...

and

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

Gameplay

''Bus Simulator 21'' takes place in "Angel Shores", a new fictional modern city located in the United States which is based on the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

. The game will feature a coastline and districts like

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

. In addition to the California map, the game will have a revised "Seaside Valley" map from its predecessor ''Bus Simulator 18''. Vehicle-wise, the game introduces a double-decker bus — such as the officially-licensed Alexander Dennis Enviro500 — as well as

electric bus An electric bus is a bus that is propelled using electric motors as opposed to an internal combustion engine. Electric buses can store the needed electricity on-board, or be fed continuously from an external source. The majority of buses s ...

es to the series. Further licensed bus brands include

Blue Bird The bluebirds are a North American group of medium-sized, mostly insectivorous or omnivorous birds in the order of Passerines in the genus ''Sialia'' of the thrush family (Turdidae). Bluebirds are one of the few thrush genera in the Americas. ...

, BYD,

Grande West Vicinity Motor Corp. (formerly Grande West Transportation Group) is a Canadian bus manufacturer headquartered in Aldergrove, British Columbia, Canada. History In 2008, BC Transit and Ottawa's OC Transpo issued a Requested for Proposal (RFP) for ...

Iveco IVECO, an acronym for Industrial Vehicles Corporation, is an Italian multinational transport vehicle manufacturing company. It designs and builds light, medium, and heavy commercial vehicles. The name IVECO first appeared in 1975 after a merger o ...

, MAN,

Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to as Mercedes and sometimes as Benz, is a German luxury and commercial vehicle automotive brand established in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a Mercedes-Benz Group subsidiary established in 2019) is headquartere ...

Scania Scania, also known by its native name of Skåne (, ), is the southernmost of the historical provinces of Sweden, provinces (''landskap'') of Sweden. Located in the south tip of the geographical region of Götaland, the province is roughly conte ...

Setra Setra is a German bus brand of EvoBus GmbH, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG. The name "Setra" comes from "selbsttragend" (self-supporting). This refers to the integral nature of the construction of the vehicles back in th ...

and

Volvo The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...

. The game will also offer a cooperative multiplayer mode.

Development and release

Stillalive Studios and Astragon Entertainment will remain as the series developer and publisher respectively. The game was targeted for a 2021 release for

and

. The release date was later confirmed on 7 September 2021, as well as two further ninth generation of video game consoles

PlayStation 5 The PlayStation 5 (PS5) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 4 in April 2019, it was launched on November 12, 2020, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North Ame ...

and Xbox Series X.

Reception

''Bus Simulator 21'' received "mixed or average" reviews according to review aggregator

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

References

External links

* {{in lang, en, de 2021 video games Bus simulation video games Bus Simulator Multiplayer and single-player video games PlayStation 4 games PlayStation 5 games Unreal Engine games Video games developed in Austria Video games set in the United States Video game sequels Windows games Xbox One games Xbox Series X and Series S games