Toy Trains VR might just be the perfect VR experience. Not only does it take a familiar real-life activity and perfectly recreate it in virtual reality, it does so while maintaining a consistent level of challenge across a slowly ramping progression of difficulty over the course of a short but rewarding story mode. And when you’re done with the story you can truly test your wits on an incredible series of new and challenging puzzle stages.
The game is insufferable adorable from the opening moment where you pull the string to turn on the basement light revealing an old toy train set. A short tutorial gets you quickly up to speed and then you can settle in for a multi-chapter adventure that will have you laying track across various landscapes in order to build all sorts of exciting structures. VR makes the most of the experience by presenting you with a large table you can approach from the front or rear and move to any of three positions on each side to access the large landscape. There are no real camera controls other than you simply moving around the table, much like real life. I did think they missed out on a fun opportunity to have an engineer camera view, so you could view the ride from inside the train and see the landscape from a miniature perspective.
Everything is miniature scale, so a train engine or car can be pinched to pick up between your virtual fingers – same with any other construction pieces. You pick the pieces you need from the parts catalog to build your track so that it connects the primary construction site with any and all smaller buildings around the map that provide materials for the workers. If you need to dispose of unwanted or extra parts just toss them over your shoulder, and they get put back into the catalog. Once you have made all the connections, you place an engine and enough train cars to carry all the resources on the track. The game will check for a completed track, either a finished loop or one with two reverse stations and check off additional cars for each connected stop along the way. If it all checks out, you can start the train and then pull the matching cord at the job site to advance the construction to the next phase. More buildings get added to the landscape forcing you to tear down and rebuild your track to reach these new locations. As you progress through the chapters, new parts get added to the catalog such as bridges, tunnels, and S-turns that give you greater freedom in building your route across increasingly harsh terrain.
The immersion if off the charts, and you physically interact with everything in the game. There are pull tabs in the book and hobby catalog and you get to pull a gold ring on a string to start the train and trigger the next phase of construction back at the site. It’s so much fun to pull the string and watch the train surge ahead with plumes of smoke floating out of the stack. Construction is a clash of hammers and saws, all inside thick plumes of rolling dust that fade away, revealing a new airport, boat dock, drive-in movie, satellite dish, and more.
Toy Trains VR is very comfortable to play and so very addicting that you can easily finish the story mode in 2-3 sittings. It’s a seated game so it’s easy to keep your headset plugged in and marathon the entire story in a single sitting, but when it comes to those challenges levels, expect some real brainteasers that will keep you occupied for hours. And finally, there is a fantastic Sandbox mode where you now have the biggest and best train set ever and are free to create the diorama of your dreams, complete with all sorts of decorations and set pieces including miniature characters that will go about their business.
I was given the chance to review Toy Trains VR on both the PSVR2 and the Meta Quest 3, and both experiences are nearly identical; enough that I am covering both with a single review. Given the simplicity of the miniature toy design and painterly landscapes, both platforms can easily delivery a fun and vivid experience without pushing either headset, and the touch controls for both devices are responsive and intuitive. Track pieces snap together perfectly and it’s easy to pick apart and rebuild parts of the track when needed. This is one of a few games where you almost instantly forget you are in VR, and you’ll just find yourself playing with your trains in the basement.
There are no time limits and gameplay can be very Zen-like at times. Cardboard clouds float past your face as you peer down at your train table like some railroad deity. Tiny humans run the sawmill or the stone quarry, and construction workers scurry about as a crane moves materials around. Once you have completed the construction phase of each chapter you are free to go in and decorate each environment with even more pages of items like rocks, fences, bales of hay, etc. It’s some fun value-added gameplay, but I saved most of my serious landscaping for the sandbox mode where I could easily lose myself for hours.
Toy Trains VR has been around for a while, long enough for a strong community to build up around the game and make several suggestions that have been recently implemented in the new Infinite Loop Update released last week. This free update adds 12 new challenge levels, and the aforementioned Sandbox mode along with a few new features. What was already a fantastic VR experience when it left the station in January, has now matured into one of my favorite casual VR pastimes this year…perhaps this generation. Both gamers and model train enthusiasts are going to fall in love with Toy Trains VR the moment they put on the headset and step into this miniature magical world.
