Construction Simulator: a very large sandbox [Backlog]

After the terrible disaster that the release of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 turned into (10 days have passed since the game's release, and I still can't fly properly) and after almost 50 hours spent "outdoors" in Farming Simulator 25, I was looking for another simulator and remembered Construction Simulator, which was released in September 2022 and which I've been wanting to play for a long time. And then there are good discounts right before the Steam fall sale - the base game can be purchased for half the price, only 214 UAH, so I didn't hesitate. Although there are some questions about Construction Simulator (Unity for a game with a large open world, really?!), I'm more than happy with the purchase, it's exactly the simulator I was looking for.

Deutsch, praktisch, gut

German-speaking gamers (Germany, Switzerland, Austria) differ significantly from gamers in other countries. Whether it is due to the peculiarities of mentality and upbringing or the long-standing ban on the sale of gory games, economic and construction strategies and real-life simulations are the most popular in Germany and its neighboring countries.

It was in Germany that such games as Police Simulator, Bus Simulator, Tram Simulator, Firefighting Simulator, CITYCONOMY (city services), Forklift Simulator, Fernbus Simulator (intercity bus), The Handyman Simulator, Truck & Logistics Simulator, Tourist Bus Simulator, Bus Mechanic Simulator, Road Maintenance Simulator, Autobahn Police Simulator, SubwaySim, Construction Simulator, and many others appeared. Name any real-life profession - the Germans have such a game! Soon they were joined by their neighbors from Poland(House Flipper), Switzerland (Farming Simulator), and the Czech Republic(American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2). To give you an idea of the level, some people work at a job during the day and play a simulation of the same job in the evening, so internet memes are not lying in this case. Some of these games are also published in paper (!) magazines, which are sold (!) at newsstands.

This craze began twenty years ago and has no intention of abating. The games are updated every few years, sell in huge numbers, and have a huge army of fans.

The same Construction Simulator is also a series with a story. Studio weltenbauer. Software Entwicklung GmbH (that's right, because of the dot in the name) from Wiesbaden released the first Construction Simulator 2012 for Widnows and macOS respectively in 2012, followed by iOS and Android versions, then Construction Simulator 2015 again for Widnows and macOS, then Construction Simulator 2 (2018) for everything in the world including PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch consoles, then mobile Construction Simulator 3, Construction Simulator 2+3 and finally in 2022, just Construction Simulator was released, without any numbers in the name. Plus, there is the latest version of Construction Simulator 4 for Android and iOS. But we will focus on the 2022 game.

For those who didn't play enough in childhood

Construction Simulator is a game for those who didn't play with dump trucks, excavators, and trucks in the sandbox as a child (there were no such toys at all in our time), or who have been dreaming of working in construction all their lives but have to sit their pants in the office.

It is also a complete antithesis and at the same time an organic addition to Farming Simulator 25. It's almost the same game, but set in the city rather than in the countryside, although you'll have to go to the suburbs in Construction Simulator and even build something for farmers. In Farming Simulator you control agricultural machines, in Construction Simulator you control construction machines. There are even intersections in the form of forklifts, tractor-trailers, trailers, and trucks with integrated cranes.

Instead of creating your own farm, as in FS25, in Construction Simulator you create your own construction company. You fulfill contracts, earn money, open improvements, buy and rent equipment for the relevant work, which can be very diverse. You can repair a road, divert cargo, build a garage, a house, a multi-storey building, a bridge, a store, a methane power plant, a hotel, a runway, a railway station, a spaceport (!), erect a huge windmill or a bridge, create a park, a playground, a parking lot, and so on.

Each of the maps, of which there are two in the basic version, conventionally German and American, has its own campaigns with a series of challenging tasks and separate random contracts. Plus, annual subscriptions include separate DLCs with an airport and a stadium, as well as a separate tropical map with a spaceport, which is obviously the Kourou spaceport. Of course, the storyline tasks are more interesting, they have more stages, some of which require the use of very sophisticated equipment.

Machines and machinery

A variety of construction equipment is what attracts Construction Simulator. And it's done well. Of course, you can't press every button in the cockpit like you can in Microsoft Flight Simulator or Train Sim World 5, but the equipment of different types and different brands is made in great detail and is close to Farming Simulator 25 in terms of the complexity of operational processes, but the graphics and detail of the models in FS25 are certainly much better.

As for the equipment. For example, to repair a road, you first need to remove the old asphalt, then remove a layer of soil, bring in gravel, tamp it down, put in asphalt and tamp it down. Each stage requires a different type of equipment: an asphalt cutter, bulldozer or grader, a roller for tamping the soil, an asphalt paver and a special truck for transporting warm asphalt, and finally an asphalt roller (yes, different rollers are used for asphalt and soil - the soil roller has a pair of wheels and a roller, and the asphalt roller has two rollers). And so on for almost every task.

Construction Simulator includes: rollers for soil and asphalt; flatbed trucks and trucks with cranes; dump trucks; bulldozers, excavators and graders; asphalt trucks, asphalt paving and asphalt cutting machines; concrete mixers and mobile concrete pumps for pouring metal molds; tower and mobile cranes, including real monsters capable of mounting windmills several hundred meters high; forklifts and conventional forklifts of several types; trailers for goods and equipment and tractor trailers for them; drilling rigs (perhaps the most difficult to control equipment in the game).

Each type of equipment is from 3-5 real brands, the most famous of which are Liebherr, Caterpillar, Dynapac, SANY, JCB, CASE, Kenworth, MAN, Mack Trucks, and others. A total of 90 vehicles from 24 brands. Plus, machines are added in the DLC, for example, one of them has very convenient telescopic forklifts and concrete mixers with built-in concrete pumps, which allow you to use one machine instead of two in some cases (not always, because the length of the booms of a separate pump is much longer).

So you see, if you like heavy machinery, Construction Simulator is the game for you.

Graphics and physics

Unless, of course, you're put off by the game's graphics. It's actually not that bad, but it's far from the graphics of Farming Simulator 25 or Train Sim World 5. Plus, the graphics in Construction Simulator feel a bit plastic and toy-like, while managing to slow down on a system that can easily pull off S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 and Microsoft Flight Simulator at maximum settings.

The problem, in my opinion, is the Unity engine, which has a hard time coping with such a large open world and trying to port the game to mobile platforms without loss. Hence the short distance and jerky loading of LOD, and simplified cars in traffic and simple building textures. Because, for example, the texture of the asphalt you lay here is very cool.

As for the physics and interaction of objects. Unlike FS25, the authors of Construction Simulator are a bit tricky, the physics in the game is simplified, in some cases it seems to be scripts at all, and not a real calculation of the interaction of objects with real mass. In addition, to simplify the interaction of building materials and objects, the developers have come up with a system of "sticky" zones where materials and components are unloaded/placed.

On the one hand, this helps to avoid problems in Farming Simulator 25 that lead to unauthorized flights of equipment or its sinking into the ground. On the other hand, it is certainly a simplification. The authors of Construction Simulator still couldn't completely eliminate the problem of interaction with objects - during the operation of excavators, there are problems with the interaction of the bucket with the soil, although I was never able to turn the machine over. But in general, soil deformation, removal of soil layers, digging, and pile formation are done very well in CS.

If you want more

The basic version of Construction Simulator has several hundred hours of gameplay, during which you will need to dig pits, lay roads, transport components, assemble complex structures, pour concrete, lots of concrete, dig again, drill, and so on.

The game also has multiplayer, but I haven't tried it because I like to play these simulations alone. Although it should be interesting when one player transports and the other unloads, one pours concrete, the other controls a concrete mixer.

If that's not enough, as I said, there are already two Season Passes for the game with new vehicles, campaigns, and a map, which means hundreds more hours of gameplay. Please note that some Year 2 Season Pass content is already available, some will be released in 2025. And then it may not be long before Construction Simulator 2025, or whatever it will be called.

P.S. Also, this game desperately needs a crossover with Farming Simulator 25, especially since some agricultural buildings are already being built here, and the way construction is done in FS25 is a nightmare