For most players, the free game mode is the most relevant feature of Transport Fever 2. In this mode you can use autogenerated or prebuilt maps and play on them as long as you like, whether with money or in complete sandbox setting.

To create a new game in free game mode, press the FREE GAME button in the main menu. There are 3 steps to start the new game:

You may either play on an autogenerated map or use an existing one from the Workshop or built in the map editor. To generate a new map, select your preferences for map generation.

At first, select the climate you prefer 1. The climate influences the optics of your game and the landscape, but has no influence on the simulation. The temperate climate features green grasslands and forests as well as rivers, lakes and higher mountains. In contrast, the dry climate features deep canyons, flat plattform hills and less vivid vegetation. The tropical climate has the possibility to create islands and consists mostly of tropical plants like palm trees.

Below that, you can adjust some common settings: 2

• Map size: The size of the map. See map size documentation for more details on available sizes.
• Map format: The side ratio of the map. See map size documentation for more details on how this affects the map.
• Towns: The amount of towns.
• Industries: The amount of industries initially created.

Each of the climates has it's own map generator with individual properties. Tweak the sliders and other options to adjust the generated maps according to your needs 3. At the bottom of the settings list is a textbox for the seed. This value is a key for randomization. With the same seed and the same settings, a map will be created identical each time. Beside the vanilla generators, it is possible to add additional terrain generators with mods, you may find some at the Steam Workshop. They all come with their individual set of options.

The area on the right shows a preview of the generated map 4.

By pressing NEXT as shown in the bottom right corner, you can proceed to the next step 5.

If you like to load an existing map instead, press the -button PLAY MAP › in the top right corner 6. The new dialog offers a list of available maps to play on as well as the options known from the dialog to load existing savegames. See there for a detailed explanations of the available options.

In this dialog, you can set the preferred vehicle set, get to the mod loading menu and set start year as well as the difficulty level.

You can select a vehicle set by pressing on the big image button 1. Transport Fever 2 comes with three different vehicle sets. The european set features vehicles from central europe, e.g. Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The american set lays its focus on the vehicles from United States of America. The new asian set features mostly vehicles from Russia, China and Japan. If you prefer to use vehicles from mods, you can switch to the advanced game settings by checking the Custom checkbox and press the button SETTINGS… in the top right corner 2. See below for further details on the settings in this menu.

Below the vehicle set selection are further settings 3. Currently you can decide in which year the game shall start and what the level of difficulty is. The year can be set in ten-year-intervals from 1850 to 2000. The available difficulties are easy, medium, hard and very hard. They differ in the financial aspects of the game.

Additionally, you can change the game options 4 according to your preferences.

• Towns cargo needs controls how many cargo types a town demands when it is fully developed. See towns page for more details on town demands.
• Industry closure frequency defines how often unused industries will be abandoned. See industries page for more details.
• Industry density target is the target value for the amount of industries. If the current amount of industries, initially given by the Industries setting on the first page, drops below this threshold during a game, additional industries will start to spawn over time. See industries page for more details.

By pressing the START button in the bottom left corner, the new game is started 5. Be aware, that the creation of the map may take longer the bigger the size of the map is set. Further it depends on the amount of industries and towns that were selected in the previous steps. If you like to get back to the previous dialog instead, you may press the BACK button in the bottom left corner.

This dialog consists of two tabs 1: The MODS tab and the ADVANCED SETTINGS tabThe ADVANCED SETTINGS and the CHEATS tab. For more information about mods and how to use them, please check the how to install and use mods page.

The ADVANCED SETTINGS tab consists of three sections: A section with advanced settings for the game 2 with the following parameters:

• Climate offer the same selection as in the first dialog.
• Environment offers the possibility to switch the lighting, e.g. the position of the sun and some tweaks to the color.
• Vehicles offers the same selection as in the second dialog plus an ALL option to activate all vehicles of Transport Fever 2 for this game.
• Difficulty offers the same selection as in the second dialog
• Town names offers the possibility to select lists that should be used for town names. It is possible to add additional lists by mods. You may find some at the Steam Workshop.

A section to control the financial aspects of the game 3:

• Maximum loan scales the maximum amount of money that can be borrowed from the bank.
• Loan interest scales the height of the interest rate for a loan.
• Investments vehicles scales the purchase costs of vehicles.
• Investments infrastructure scales the costs of terrain modification and infrastructure construction.
• Maintenance vehicles scales the maintenance costs of vehicles.
• Maintenance infrastructure scales the maintenance costs of tracks, roads, depots and stations.

And a third section to adjust the town growth factors 4:

• Public transport controls the influence of reachable destinations by public transport on town growth.
• Private transport controls the influence of reachable destinations by private transport on town growth.
• Cargo supply controls the influence of the cargo supply rating on town growth.
• Overcrowded stations controls the influence of overcrowded passenger stations on town growth.
• Traffic congestion controls the influence of traffic slowdowns on town growth.
• Emission controls the influence of emissions around town buildings on town growth.

The RESET TO DEFAULT button resets all sliders to their default values.

Confirm the settings by pressing the SAVE button in the bottom right corner 5 or abort the advanced settings by pressing the BACK button in the bottom left corner.

Existing games can be loaded by using the LOAD GAME button in the main menu or the LOAD GAME menu in the pause menu while ingame.

In the top left section, there is a list of all available savegames 1. This covers the savegames that were created on this computer as well as those which were downloaded in the Steam Workshop.

Once a savegame is selected from the list, its details as well as the last viewport before saving are shown on the right side 2. It is possible to share selfmade savegames in the Steam Workshop by clicking on the button. To delete a savegame, press the DELETE button on the right side and confirm the deletion.

In the section below, all active mods of the currently selected savegame are listed 3.
To deactivate or activate mods or change advanced settings, press the SELECT OPTIONS button in the top right corner of the table 5. To activate or deactivate cheats or change advanced settings for the selected savegame, press shown at 3. The next menu is identical to the advanced game settings of new games like described above.

The BASIC SETTINGS button 4Pressing as shown at 4 opens a pop-up where you can choose some basic game settings. See above for a detailed description of these settings.

To load the game, press the START button in the bottom right corner 6 as shown at 5. If this button is deactivated, it is likely that a mod is missing. In this case, look at the troubleshooting guide for mods to solve the issue.

Ingame, the full palette of features may eventually come available. Some resources are locked until a certain date, for example the rail overhead wires are not available until 1910 and bus lanes are not available before 1925. See the user interface section for a detailed explanation of the available menus and the infrastructure section for an overview of available tools.