As a concept, Bus World should be on par with the other transport simulators out there. However, this game, while trying to do something interesting with the scenarios, fails in almost every way.
Even from minute one of booting up the game, it felt like a PS2 game, not one running on modern consoles. The menus are bland and basic and are just there to get you into the scenarios menu.
However, even here the game trips over itself. When you go into the play tab, the menu will bug out on you, making it tricky to even select a scenario to play. This is because when you move the cursor, sometimes it gets stuck behind the map that is behind the scenarios, meaning you have to back out and go back in.
Now, let us break down this bus crash down into its individual elements.
Bus World Story
There are a number of scenarios for you to take on in a variety of countries and time periods. The tutorial is a bit strange as you’re placed in the bus that took civilians away from Pripyat during the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
The scenarios in general, which include navigating the geysers of Iceland and the coastal regions of China, are probably the only highlight of this game. The environments are varied, and the gameplay is slightly different and does take a little of a challenge to complete, but it is a real slog in my opinion.
Alongside these scenarios, there is free play as well, which is the only other thing you can do in Bus World. To be honest, after trying it a few times for review purposes, I ended up hating free play, and now I never have to play it again.
Gameplay
Overall, the controls are pretty straightforward, and you will easily pick it up and understand how to get your bus on the road, but after a couple of missions, you will wish you never did.
The gameplay in general is bland and quite boring. It can be argued, though: What did you expect from a bus driver simulator? Well, you might say that, but I do really enjoy the Train Sim World games, but that might be due to the fact I can drive some of the routes I know in real life, and I can see that these places actually do mimic their real-world counterparts.
While I have never been to Chernobyl or the other locations in this game, I can still see it’s not really an accurate representation of what these places are like. The actual motion of driving the bus, waiting for passengers to board, etc., is beyond boring. The camera angles are terrible, with even something basic like your mirrors turned off by default due to the issues caused by having them on.
Navigating the geysers is the most infuriating experience as the stuttering gameplay and texture pop-in, dreadful frame rate, etc., can make this quite an infuriating level.
Overall, the scenarios are okay and will help change up the gameplay, but apart from that, it’s just a means to an end to get you behind the wheel.
Bus World Graphics
Another element for a dressing down is the graphics. This game would not look out of place on the PS2. The buses themselves are very plain and drab on the inside, reminding me of all my days getting on the school bus. The passengers have about as much emotion in their expressions as most commuting every day, which is strange given the scenarios the game puts before you. Then there are the maps. Yes, there is variety in the locations from impending nuclear disasters to geysers, but the level of detail is so poor, you would confuse the cityscapes of Chernobyl for Milton Keynes.
The graphics are so bad that your mirrors, essential pieces of equipment for driving a bus, are not active by default, as when turned on it, they cause further graphical issues.
In general, the graphics would not look out of place as a late PS2 or at best an early PS3 title, and that is being extremely kind.
Other Gripes
My gripes are pretty endless with this game, but here are just some others that you need to know about. The menus are simplistic and a chore just to navigate, but when in that play menu, I ran into multiple instances when the map and scenario menus became glitched and made it impossible to select one or the other, so you have to back out and go back in.
The missions might sound like a good idea, but at times, I just failed the mission despite following the objectives, and the game doesn’t tell you where you went wrong, it just boots you back to the beginning.
Textures are blurry and suffer from serious pop-in at points, and the performance in general, on such a powerful console, is worse than woeful.
Conclusion
When scoring Bus World, I was torn. The question is: What were my expectations? Well, they were super low. So, in theory, my score shouldn’t be too low as I wasn’t expecting much. On the other hand, I have to compare it to other simulators out there. For a simulator game that looks worse than similar titles from five years ago, this is a major letdown.
Also, this is a port from a three-year-old game. You would think the developers would try their best to improve the performance.
Developer: KishMish
Publisher: Ultimate Games
Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Release Date: 11th December 2025
Gaming Respawn’s copy of Bus World was provided by the publisher.
