Bus Bound review: An oddly cosy ride

My editor said that if someone told him I would accept a review code for a bus simulator, he would've laughed, yet here we are. Lately, I've been playing mostly competitive Overwatch 2 , which means high-stress, fast matches, yelling, and questioning my life choices. So I wanted something chill, something that I can relax with. Something where the biggest consequence for my bad decision was a passenger throwing around passive-aggressive comments and giving me a thumbs down, and Bus Bound delivered.

You'll be braking, accelerating, using turn signals, and checking mirrors, all the things that seem so intense in real life, but here, where a controller replaced the steering wheel, it brings a rhythm that's oddly relaxing. Not all of us are meant to drive buses, but this simulator does make a decent case for trying anyway.

Building a bus empire

Similar to other games of this kind, Bus Bound doesn't have a traditional narrative - there is no villain to defeat, no weird plot twists, and no cutscenes that explain your motivations. It's much simpler: you're just a person who wants to drive buses, and you join a company in Emberville, which allows you to drive buses around the city. As the city council pays you based on passenger satisfaction, the more satisfied your passengers are with your driving, the better. Your goal is to establish a bus service in every district, earn likes, add more stations, and slowly expand further.

The progression system is straightforward. As you go through drives - and complete them successfully - so smooth braking, respecting speed limits, properly stopping at bus stops - you accumulate likes. Once you earn a certain number of likes on a station, you get a star. Stars unlock customisations for your buses (you'll have 17 buses in total), line extensions which allow you to create new routes, additional buses, and so on.

After all the bus stops in a district achieve the required number of likes, you get the option to upgrade the district, which leads to your garage getting a new bus. You should know that, even though most of us have no idea about buses, you will have a favourite bus. It's unavoidable.

Driving properly and getting likes on stations allows you to upgrade districts.

After you upgrade a district, it unlocks new stations, which you can then connect to your existing routes and save as new lines. It's a satisfying loop: drive well, get likes and stars, unlock new areas, create more complex routes, repeat. The progression is visible and tangible; you can even check out your buses in the garage and upgrade them, recolour them as well, look through the driver's guide for tips, and examine your drives and stats.

As you play the game, you'll be able to upgrade buses, change colours and add perks.

I did feel, at times, that the progression is a bit slow, or maybe I was bad and wasn't progressing as fast as I could. There are a couple of districts available, and in order to unlock them, you need the likes of the passengers. For a couple of stations, I've gotten a star fairly easily, and for others, it took a while. Usually, that happened if a tricky turn or intersection was close to the bus station, which I would then mess up and lose likes. However, this isn't a short game, it's not even a game that has an end. You can just keep playing even after upgrading and perfecting every district and bus.

If you're into playing with other people, there is also a multiplayer mode where you and two other players online are grouped up to bring the best bus service to Emberville. You can work together with strangers or with your friends to tackle multiple routes simultaneously. I stuck mostly to single-player, as none of my friends share these new bus driver aspirations of mine.

Learning to drive (and not bump into things)

At the end of the day, Bus Bound is a driving simulator. Your best friends will be your brake and accelerator controls, turn signals, and mirrors. You'll have to follow speed limits and make sure you don't hit someone or drive into a building (although even if you do, the consequences will be underwhelming, but I'll leave that to you to discover). The controls take a bit to get used to, but I would assume learning to drive an actual bus would also be complicated to learn - it's a giant metal can on wheels. 

In Bus Bound, you'll have to pay attention to speed limits, braking smoothly, and carefully going over speed bumps.

Everything that people would praise or shame you for in real life is also rated here. Parking at bus stops, braking smoothly, stopping at stop signs, and navigating speed bumps without showing your passengers what zero gravity feels like, all of these actions contribute to the passenger satisfaction score. If you pay attention and do well, they will praise you. If you drive like a maniac, they will complain. The rating system will give you constant feedback, so you'll get the hang of what is expected of you.

But that logic has loopholes. The game tells you that you can turn right even on a red light, and when you do, passengers sometimes complain that you've run a red light. You're supposed to stop at stop signs, and I still encountered situations where, after I did, the passengers still complained that I didn't.

These little inconsistencies, if happening a lot, will create frustrations as you're just confused about what you're doing wrong. If you do feel like making mistakes and just being a bus maniac, there aren't many repercussions. I did try to see if I could get into an accident, hit cars, create a little mayhem, but the biggest thing that I saw happening is that the game just moves my bus back, and that's it. And the complaints, of course.

The camera perspective adds a new layer of challenge sometimes. It does take some adjusting and practice, and at the beginning, I didn't particularly like either perspective as they both had their downsides. You need to drive a bit to get the hang of either, but first-person just feels more immersive; you feel as if you're actually driving. 

In Bus Bound, both first and third-person view require some getting used to.

I started with the third-person view and then switched to first-person, because I found the turning of the wheel to be very satisfying. However, I felt like I didn't have enough vision, and I bumped into more things when using the first-person view. Both of them take time, so give both a chance before deciding which one is better for you.

You can see your side mirrors, and there is the front mirror as well, but it's the one that allows you to check out the passengers and the inside of the bus, seeing outside will not be possible with this mirror. In addition to that, a neat detail is that if it's raining, without the wipers on, you won't be able to see anything, no matter which perspective you choose. It is obviously more immersive in first-person view. I know people who know me will find it weird that I'm choosing first-person over third-person view, as I'm known to be a huge first-person view hater.

I encountered a few glitches while playing, such as passengers glitching when entering the bus, cars sometimes just disappearing from the road or just appearing very blurry and pixelated, and for whatever reason because of that, judging distances became a bit challenging. I've seen cars disappear into the ground, too.

Sometimes the passengers do have funny remarks, whether you make a mistake or do something the right way. At one point, I was driving over the speed limit, and one of them said, "Need for Speed: Bus edition". I did find some of these funny, but also, if you keep hearing them a lot, especially if they are unwarranted or because of a glitch, it can get annoying.

Functional but flawed visuals

The graphics in Bus Bound are decent, about as good as you'd expect for a game like this. It's not trying to compete with AAA games, and that's okay. The buses themselves have enough details that you can appreciate the different models in your garage, which is something that bus enthusiasts will surely appreciate more than I did, as to me, they're just buses.

Emberville's districts have different visual identities as well - different architecture, road layouts, environmental details - which might help you move around more easily. Although I wish there were more happening on those streets, there are obviously cars around, and some pedestrians, construction happening here and there, but after a while, it all starts to look the same. A bit more variety would've been nice.

If it rains, without wipers on you won't be able to see anything properly.

Performance-wise, I didn't have any issues; the game runs smoothly, and there is no stuttering or FPS drops on the base PlayStation 5.

The sound design is functional, but nothing too remarkable. If you're naughty and hit something, the passengers and drivers will audibly complain, and you'll be able to hear honking here and there. The sounds of cars are well done, both braking and accelerating sounds just as they should, as do opening and closing the doors and hitting the brake that releases the air when the bus stops. It checks all the boxes around cars and vehicles that a driving simulator should.

After a drive, you'll get back to the office where you can read the stats, check the driver's guide, go to the garage, or start a new drive.

The passengers sadly don't chat, you won't hear from them unless they are praising you or complaining, and while you drive, you'll be listening to music which honestly sounds like royalty-free YouTube music. I hope that on PC someone makes a mod to add your own music, like you could do while driving a taxi in GTA: Vice City. That would be a blast, and more immersive because if I were a bus driver, all my passengers would be jamming to my playlists.

The chill simulator I needed

As mentioned above, I've never been a simulator fan, just didn't see the appeal. Bus Bound was my first ever, and because of it, I might just go for another one if I get the chance. I didn't expect to like it, and it did make me work for it a bit, but in the end, I've enjoyed the time I spent driving around Emberville.

It is a chill and relaxing time, but you will still need to push through the initial bits of overwhelmingness and frustration, as the game does throw a lot at you in the beginning. You'll meet clunky controls at times, be confused because of disappearing cars, and get annoyed at passengers complaining when you do follow the rules of the game. But in all that occasional chaos, Bus Bound manages to become oddly cosy. You might even start talking back to the passengers when they complain; it's not like anyone can stop you.

Once it clicks, it becomes genuinely relaxing. Braking smoothly at stops, respecting the speed limits, using turn signals properly, and managing your route network to cover all of Emberville's districts, it is all meditative in a way you wouldn't expect. I know I didn't.

If you're looking for a perfect technical execution that always follows consistent game logic, Bus Bound might frustrate you. But if you can accept that there will be a few clunky systems in place, this game can become a fun few hours when you don't want to think about whether you'll de-rank or if the next boss will send you back to the previous bonfire, which is three levels away. It's not a GOTY, but it's a chill "I need a break from intense matches" game, and sometimes that's all you need.