The Next Generation of Rail Simulation

Yes we're a few hours late, but major news today RailSimulator.com Dovetail Games (sorry I can't help but still do that ocationally)  have announced their next train simulation project (presumably Train Simulator 2016) which will compete with Trainz: A New Era. (the text that follows in small is what was intended to be short introduction but ended up being a detailed history)  This will be the eighth generation of rail simulation, the first including Southern Belle and Evening Star, the second Densha de Go! ,and first version of Trainz. The third and best generation was when Microsoft the creators of Windows supported train simulation themselves with Microsoft Train Simulator and despite downloads not being popular as distribution method back then "third-party content" was very popular boxed, Trainz got major improvements as well. Then followed the fourth generation An earlier attempt at building a second version to MSTS was originally announced during the Spring of 2003 but halted by Spring of 2004. Much of the former development team from Kuju later established Rail Simulator. Meanwhile Trainz had lost most of it's popularity in the UK but continued with biannual paid updates released in the UK and TML-Studios started their World of Subways franchise. With the release of Rail Simulator a new company was set up from some of the core members of the initial development team with the specific aim of fulfilling continued development of the brand and supporting users and 3rd party developers with add-on projects. RSDL produced two patches, developed and released add-ons and  helped the release of 3rd party products.In April 2009, a take over of RSDL was announced, with the development switching to a new version of the software called RailWorks which would be released on Steam. This change heralded a break from EA being the publisher in Europe and rights over the source code for Rail Simulator being transferred to single ownership by RailSimulator.com Ltd^{. Then Followed Railworks 2, Railworks 3 Train Simulator 2012, Train Simulator 2013 and Train Simulator 2014 all the exact same game! NV3 Games as Auran are now known announced a Kickstarter for Trainz: A New Era, it was a huge success and TML-Studios upgraded their World of Subways 4 to modern spec ...and now Dovetail Games have announced an actual new train simulation probably to be titled Train Simulator 2016 which alongside TANE and WOS4 comprises the fifth generation of rail simulation.}

^{The next generation version of Train Simulator will use Unreal Engine 4 meaning we can expect graphics to be similar to or better than Dovetail Games Fishing which can be seen in this video (note probably enhanced during post production). Other than that very little is known Dovetail Games have an made some statement on Engine Driver it's short and worth a read http://www.engine-driver.com/article/show/4644/dovetail-games-begins-work-on-next-generation-train-simulator most of which is pasted below:}

What about the press release which said Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) will also be used as the basis for a new generation of Train Simulator?
I am very excited indeed about this. If you read up on UE4 you'll learn that it's a tremendous platform for developing stunning and exciting games and I'm really looking forward to us moving Train Simulator massively forwards with it. We have gained valuable experience from producing Dovetail Games Fishing using Unreal Engine 4, and all of this experience and technical know-how is helping us develop the next generation of Train Simulator using UE4. Even though fishing and trains might seem a world apart, there are a lot of common areas - including visual things like the skies, water, trees and people - which we can carry over to Train Simulator. There are numerous other reasons why UE4 will enable us to take Train Simulator to a new and very exciting standard.
Will there be a UE4-powered Train Simulator released this year?
Not this year I'm afraid, it's a big job! But work on the next generation UE4-powered Train Simulator is well under way. It's way too early yet to show screenshots or discuss technical features in any detail but I am very excited by what this means for train simulation and really looking forward to bringing out a totally up-to-date, more realistic and better looking Train Simulator rebuilt from scratch using Unreal Engine 4.

Experience gained in the development of Dovetail Games Fishing is the foundation for a UE4-powered Train Simulator. 
So, what is the timescale for the next-generation Train Simulator? And what will happen this year?
We are not quite ready to share the target dates just yet for the next generation Train Simulator. This year we are continuing to develop and expand the existing generation of Train Simulator and you can look forward to an official announcement on those plans later this month. You can keep up with all the latest information from us by "liking" us on Facebook and signing up for our email newsletter.
When the UE4-based Train Simulator becomes a reality, what will happen to existing users’ older versions of Train Simulator? And what about the DLC they have purchased?
We are mindful that a lot of people in the community have built up some fantastic collections of locomotives and routes over the last few years and we're absolutely going to continue to support those products, and indeed create new content, for the current generation Train Simulator. I can say that we are looking at making the next generation Train Simulator an optional upgrade so you can continue to use the current generation product with all of your current add-ons, whether or not you choose to upgrade to the next generation. So, if you are concerned that your machine might not be up to handling Unreal Engine 4, don't worry.
What about user-created content? User-generated and third-party content has been a staple of Train Simulator since the beginning.
Unreal Engine 4 comes with some absolutely top-of-the-line tools that offer features and capabilities that we are keen to leverage in the next generation Train Simulator. At this point it's still too early to say exactly how we will package these tools for use by our content creators, but we very keen to ensure that significantly improved developer tools are available to the community and to third party developers.

So not much answered there. Backwards compatibility seems unlikely if I were DTG I would be looking into writing some sort of converter but even then the graphics wold really not work very well though... I hope there is a converter of sorts because it could be years (if ever for some routes) before a new version is released. Also it seems likely that DTG wil be re-releasing a lot of trains with exact same model and unrealistic sounds for another £11.99! The "continued support" for previous generation of Train Simulator likely won't last long amd after a year I doubt new content will continue to be created with probably either versions of DLC released for both or backwards conversions. It's possible the old DLC will be removed from Steam after a couple of years I hope not.

The release date of this version of Train Simulator will not be any time soon I expect it around October 2015 or even Autumn 2016. I also expect we won't hear any news on this product for a while as Train Simulator 2015 will be updated in September and they'll want people to buy it and even after that they'll want people to buy DLC so we may not hear more news for up to a year!

They will almost definatley still support "third-party content" but it wouldn't surprise me if they made it more difficult and less professional. If they don't I won't buy it.

As for the most important thing what will this new version add/improve very little is known. The graphics and other eye candy will be improved as mentioned above. DTG say "There seems to be a little confusion over what exactly the Unreal Engine 4 is and what it can do. Here is a very nice tech demo created by Epic, who makes the engine, to showcase its power. <object width="560" height="315"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/PD5cRnrMqWw?hl=en_US&amp;version=3&amp;rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="//www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/PD5cRnrMqWw?hl=en_US&amp;version=3&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>Now take all of that and imagine what Train Simulator could look like." Still not much info but it's all we've got. I think they should include:

• More realistic phyics
• Multi core processor support (allowing more PCs to run the software =more money)
• Support for longer routes
• Passengers actually getting on the train not just fading (it's pretty minor but is really outdated)
• Native support for RailDriver
• Mac and Linux ports with full third-party content compatibility across all platforms.

NOTE: These are some  top suggestions for major improvements to the base not content or pricing.

This version will probably be developed for higher end PCs so they can keep re-releasing it for another 8 years. Video game console ports are a possibility judging by the Dovetail Games Fishing trailer I hope not though as it'd be a waste of time there would be no third-parts support.

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