Ongakukan and the East Japan Railway Company announced the next DLC coming to JR East Train Simulator, and it’s likely one of the most anticipated, featuring one of Tokyo’s most relevant train lines.
Of course, I’m talking about the Chūō-Sōbu Line, which cuts across Japan’s capital from East to West. Its yellow trains are an iconic sight among commuters and tourists.
Specifically, the DLC will portray the local line, and not the rapid Chuo Line, which runs mostly parallel.
Interestingly, it will include the westbound side of the line in its entirety, from Chiba (which is actually the next large city beyond Tokyo’s border, in its own Chiba prefecture) to Mitaka, site of the Ghibli Museum.
It’ll be 60.2km long and will run the 10-car Series E231 – 500 trains. It’ll release on Tuesday, December 23, 2025 for 3,480 yen on PC via Steam.
If you’re unfamiliar with JR East Train Simulator, it’s available for PC via Steam and comes with a massive range of DLC simulating plenty of different trains and lines around Tokyo and Eastern Japan.
While it’s certainly a niche sim compared to more global franchises like Train Sim World 6, it enjoys “mostly positive” reviews (with “very positive” recent ones), and it has a dedicated fanbase. Incidentally, it was developed by Ongakukan, one of the pioneers of the train simulation genre with the Train Simulator franchise that debuted all the way back in 1995.
Just a few months ago, JR East (the actual railway operator in the real world), which also publishes the game officially, announced an official and blindingly expensive controller unit for the most professional (or nerdy) of the simulator’s fans.
The simulator receives regular additions via line-specific DLC, like the one focusing on the Senzan Line and the one portraying the Tobu Skytree Line.
