Tower! Simulator 3

DO NOT RECOMMEND If you are buying Tower! Simulator 3 with any intention of playing multiplayer with friends, save your money. What could have been an incredible air traffic control simulator has been left to rot under neglectful engineering, fragile netcode, and a development and moderation team that actively dismisses core game-breaking flaws. The Multiplayer "Experience" is an Unplayable Slog Attempting to run a multiplayer session in this game is not simulation—it is an exhausting, multi-hour ordeal in technical troubleshooting. Fragile Lobbies & Cryptic Errors: Getting a group into a lobby routinely results in instant desktop crashes and phantom "not compatible" source errors. Instead of automated checksum verification or clear error messages, players are expected to manually dig through file directories and guess why the client won't handshake. 30-Minute Loading Purgatory: Loading into larger airports regularly takes anywhere from 15 to 45+ minutes. The loading bar provides zero meaningful telemetry, and more than often stutters, and freezes. When the game (frequently) enters a hanging state, be it because of file management, issues, player desync, or just downright horrendous netcode, it is silent, and performs exactly like regular loading time, leaving an entire group sitting in voice chat guessing if the game is loading or dead. Archaic File Management & Zero Asset Sync: In a modern commercial title, expecting players to manually dig through raw installation directories, verify schedule files line-by-line, and finagle obscure configuration folders just to get a session to handshake is unacceptable. The game lacks basic checksum verification, an in-game asset manager, and legible error reporting. Instead of the game automatically matching versions or telling you which file is missing, you are hit with cryptic "incompatible source" errors that force an entire group into thirty minutes of directory troubleshooting before you can even attempt to load. Zero Fault Tolerance: There is no session reconnection. If a player experiences a momentary network blip, the game enters into single player mode for every user and the MP game session is ruined. Degrading AI Voice System: The recently implemented AI voice system is half-baked. When it degrades (usually 20 or so minutes into a game session) or desyncs mid-session, it completely breaks the operational flow of the game, often forcing everyone to kill their tasks and restart the entire 45-minute loading slog from scratch. We recently spent over two hours wrestling with lobby crashes, file directories, and frozen loading screens, resulting in zero minutes of actual gameplay. A Development Team That Dismisses Its Community The state of the software is bad enough, but the attitude from management makes it worse. When these critical, beta-era multiplayer flaws were brought directly to the community channels where players actively try to organize games, the official response from FeelThere management was to shut down the thread and claim that game-breaking multiplayer stability is merely "a top priority for a given individual" and not in "the whole community's top interest," concluding with the condescending assertion that they "have the full picture." Telling paying customers who cannot get basic multiplayer to function that they simply don't have "the full picture" is insulting. You don't need internal development roadmaps to see that the foundational networking of this game is broken. Dismissing game-ending crashes and complete lack of session resiliency as isolated, fringe complaints while continuing to aggressively churn out paid airport DLCs shows where the priorities truly lie: monetizing add-on content over fixing a crumbling base platform. Sporadic quarterly updates do little to address these legacy defects, often introducing new regressions rather than stabilizing the core engine. The Verdict Simulation ecosystems thrive on community, but FeelThere has built a multiplayer framework so user-hostile that it actively kills any joy in the genre. If you want a stable, respectful multiplayer experience that values your free time, look elsewhere. Do not reward a developer that treats core stability like an afterthought and brushes off legitimate technical failures with patronizing PR platitudes.

I love this game. It's just as the title says, an airport tower simulator that has a great concept, fidelity to realism, and incredible gameplay loop. Here are the things the game does well: [list] [*]This game makes you feel like an airport controller. When playing by yourself, you control ground and tower, so at busy airports, you feel like an absolute boss when you've got your flow down and guide giant planes around without incident. [*]Unlike other reviewers, I don't feel like I'm fighting the voice recognition system. Once I learned the commands and their quirks (like using "on" instead of "upon", or "pushback approved" instead of "push and start approved"), the voice recognition picked up 9 out of every 10 commands I gave. The game forces you to speak fast to get everyone moving safely, and I have no issues with it picking up my instructions. There may be one to two instances where it messes up, but by and large it's seamless. With the exceptions noted below.[/list] Here are some things I think need improvement: [list] [*]The commands can feel clunky to say because the wording is so specific and sometimes unnatural sounding compared to what I typically hear in real world ATC or VATSIM. For example, to tell landing aircraft to exit either left or right, I want to say, "[callsign] exit [right/left] when able." Instead I have to say "[callsign] take next available exit on [right/left]." Another example is giving take off clearance and handoff instructions together. Thankfully there is a command that allows you to do both, but it feels very unnatural and rigid. I want to say, "[callsign] cleared for take off on runway #. [i]Upon reaching # feet[/i], contact departure." Instead I have to say, "[callsign] cleared for take off runway #. [i]On reaching altitude #[/i], contact departure". These aren't game breaking, just a little difficult to get used to, and I understand it's hard to capture every variation of one command. And the developer has definitely tried to capture variations of multiple commands. [*]Career mode does a good job of easing you in to the chaos the game eventually becomes, but I think the points needed to move up levels should be scaled up way higher; and points from quick play should not go towards career mode. This is just a personal preference, but it's way too easy to unlock higher difficulty career missions. There's little sense of accomplishment in earning enough points to unlock the next harder tier. [*]The graphics aren't anything to write home about, but I honestly don't spend much time looking out of the tower as I'm paying attention to the radars. You don't need the beefiest computer to play, though I do think there could probably be some optimization in places, e.g. free cam and follow plane cam do drop frames on my 5070ti when snapping to view. [*]There is no good native functionality to customize traffic density. You have to go get third-party add-ons that lets you customize traffic schedules and volume. Sure, there's a slider for "traffic density," but without add-ons, and without digging into the game files to find the arrival and departure schedules, you have no way of knowing how busy the airport is going to be. You may pick 50% traffic density at peak rush hour wanting something chill, but unbeknownst to you, that's still busier than 100% traffic density two hours later. Improving the native tool to specifically choose the number of departures and arrivals would be nice. [/list] Despite those, the game is still fun... however, I can't recommend the game in the current state. Here are my reasons that I can't and won't play the game until these issues are resolved: [list] [*]The price. Oh my... I paid full $60 for a buggy game that looks okay. Never mind the base game, if you want real world airlines and callsigns, you have to pay another $45 for that add-on. Oh, do you want to play at a specific airport not in the base game? That's another $20, $25, or even a whopping $30 dollars depending on the airport. Or you could a bundle of 12 of the most popular airports at 60% off each airport...for $106. How generous... I understand that developers have to find a way to monetize their games after the initial price to stay in business these days, but come on. This feels insulting. There's got to be a better way to fund the developer without paying insane DLC prices. I don't have any ideas, but that's not my job. I haven't paid for any add-on nor will I until the gamer is respected with a better business model. [*]The bugs suck. The first ~2 to ~5 hours, there were some annoying voice recognition issues. The system felt like it wasn't understanding me, but after learning it and working with it, it got much better. There are still instances where I have to repeat myself. The worst case is using the "hold short of taxiway or runway" command. It often thinks "hold short" is "H H (or taxiway hotel hotel)." This command being misunderstood is incredibly frustrating because it's often accompanied with very long, complex taxi instructions, and having to repeat it once or twice breaks immersion and ruins your gameplay and ability to manage effectively. [*]Some commands just don't work. I have never gotten the "follow company" command to work. They don't follow company traffic, and they get stuck even after I try giving them new taxi instructions. [*]After hour ~19, a new bug appeared. Planes would be holding short of a runway and when asked to line up and wait, or given takeoff clearance, they would repeatedly ask for permission to cross the runway they were holding short of and never move. In some cases, there's not even a taxiway on the other side to cross to. You have to just delete the plane to solve the issue, which of course deleting planes is a penalty. This is so incredibly frustrating that I'm not playing the game again until these bugs are fixed and the game is polished. [*]The last kick in the nuts is bug reporting. Tower! Similator 3, like most other games, has an in game bug reporting feature. Well, not quite. When you try to report a bug, you fill out all the requested information, but at that point, it tells you you have to go into the game's folders, find a zip file that contains your bug report, and then go to their website to actually submit it. The last thing I want to do is do extra work to report a problem when I'm already frustrated with a bug. I'm not sure why this can't be all done within the game automatically.[/list] I love this game and want to support the developers because they have a potentially stellar product here. Again, I can live with some of the clunky commands, or the mediocre graphics, but I can't stand to play a game that does not work as intended with planes stuck and confused on the ground, and commands that are acknowledged but broken. Until the pricing model is fixed, the bugs are fixed, and the game is fleshed out a little more, I cannot recommend the game. It does scratch that itch, so if you're dying to play it, buy it while it's on sale, but expect both a fun time and an even more frustrating experience. I hope to change this review to a positive one in the future.

Currently won't recognize voice commands. A problem with Windows, I guess. Now have $250 worth of game I can't use.

Terrible game if you're controlling without voice, all the commands are wrong, most are missing. I was unable to land aircraft, or have any take off. I refunded after 75 minutes of trying to figure it out.

The game itself is fine, but voice recognition and dlc prices are abysmal, voice recognition is way too inconsistent, it makes the experience very stressful most of the time. World traffic and liveries bundle costs 3x more than the game itself at where i live, and the airports costs more than half the game's price on steam, simply abysmal.

**Title: Terrible voice recognition ruins the entire game** Tower Simulator 3 sounded like a game I would really enjoy, but the voice recognition is so bad that it completely ruins the experience. A game like this depends on commands being understood clearly and consistently, and this one fails at that basic job. I spent more time fighting with the voice system than actually playing the game. Commands that should be simple either do not register, get misunderstood, or require repeating over and over. That turns what should be a fun air traffic control simulator into frustration. For a simulator built around speaking commands, the voice recognition should be one of the strongest parts of the game. Instead, it feels broken and unreliable. Because of that, I honestly feel like Tower Simulator 3 is a waste of both time and money. I cannot recommend this game unless the voice recognition is seriously improved.

Absolutely loved this game, but the new voice recognition, specifically the pilot readbacks, have absolutely ruined it. It takes pilots FOREVER to read back instructions, and they may or may not do what you are asking them to. Super frustrating.

I have bought this game in the Steam Summer Sale for half off, which came to 25 euros. Like many of the reviews posted before me, I feel like this should be the base price for this game. The AI is fine, but the listening part is terrible. If you have the fake names, make sure the system can listen to these names. I have come into really bad situations because they didn't listen. This is basically the base functionality for this game, and it doesn't work properly. The extra DLCs are incredibly expensive as well. For what is basically just AI map plotting.

Leider funktioniert die Voice-Kommando-Funktion nicht in einer virtuellen Systemumgebung (z.B. CrossOver). Bitte vor dem Kauf prüfen, ob die Systemvoraussetzungen erfüllt sind. Zum Gameplay selbst: Die Simulation trennt nicht zwischen Tower- und Ground-Controllern. Auch die Kamerasteuerung ist sehr gewöhnungsbedürftig. Die virtuelle Radar-Bildschirm-Sicht ist nur auf wirklich hochauflösenden Monitoren hilfreich (4k), was aber ein leistungsfähiges System erfordert. Vom Herausforderungsfaktor her ist der "Career"-Modus viel zu flach. Man kann zügig alles freischalten, aber es gibt keine wirklich interessanten Szenarien wie Notfälle, Flughafenfeuerwehr usw. Dafür ist der Preis m.E. zu hoch. Der Preis für die DLC's ist einfach unverschämt hoch.