Why we need Mini Motorways and Mini Metro on Xbox and Game Pass

It’s been a decade since Dinosaur Polo Club stumbled onto something special with their Mini series of games. From there, they’ve gone from strength to strength. So much so that now feels like the prime time to launch Mini Motorways on Xbox and Game Pass, accompanying it with Mini Metro.

Mini Metro – the birth of something new and refreshing

It all kicked off with Mini Metro; a game jam competition effort that initially moved onto web browsers as a prototype. Thrusting you into a minimalist world, Mini Metro is a puzzler in which you take on the role of a railway planner, left to build and manage an efficient subway, keeping a city moving.

You do so by connecting railways, working stations, trains and the most efficient of routes. 

Complete with a super minimalist style that allows the focus to be on the action taking place, your main goal in everything that Mini Metro has to handle is to keep your city moving, for as long as possible. 

Squares, circles, triangles and more need connecting, with randomly generated cities and maps keeping would-be city planners on their toes. It’s a brilliant little game that is as addictive as anything we’ve played in recent years. 

There was obviously something about the simplicity that ensured that it would appeal, with it soon turning into a full release. Mini Metro launched for real in 2015 on PC, before finding what we think is its most natural home on Android and iOS in 2016. 

Since that time PlayStation and Nintendo Switch players have also had the opportunity to enjoy Mini Metro. But that Xbox release of Mini Metro? Not yet. 

Motorways takes the Miniverse to new levels

For as compelling as Mini Metro is, it has been Mini Motorways which has managed to deliver the real joy. It released onto Apple Arcade in 2019. And has consistently been placed as one of the most downloaded of titles ever since we first got eyes on. In fact, as we type, it’s sitting at #3 in the Apple Arcade charts, with Mini Metro+ at #8. PC and Nintendo Switch versions followed.

Mini Motorways very much works along similar lines to Mini Metro. But this time you’re left to work your magic on a city road system. It’s that which we’ve found to be more a draw than the railways.

Creating roads with a single drag of a cursor, connecting up urban areas with industrial and commercial plots as commuters look to get to work and back, there’s a weird kind of joy in watching the cities of Mini Motorways get busier and busier by the week. Scrabbling around with the creation – and occasional deletion – of roads can get extremely tense. 

With new tools dropping on as Sunday evenings pass (a week flies by in a Mini game), throwing out roundabouts, tunnels, bridges and, of course, motorways, the strategic feel comes to the fore. How you best see fit to serve your city will be dictated by the choices you make here. 

We’ve found working through the cities of Mini Motorways to be super captivating. Ticking off challenges and placing on worldwide leaderboards on a near daily basis. Again, the random, procedurally generated aspects that Dinosaur Polo Club have integrated mean Mini Motorways – much like Mini Metro – feels constantly fresh.

But that Xbox release of Mini Motorways? Again, not yet. 

Time for Mini Motorways on Xbox?

And so why now? Why does it feel like a perfect time for Dinosaur Polo Club to finally release Mini Metro and Mini Motorways onto Xbox?

Well, it’s been a decade since first inception and to celebrate those ten years, Mini Metro and Mini Motorways have received some crossover content, alongside a fairly hefty update. 

Now present and correct in Mini Motorways are three new maps. We’ve got London, New York and Mumbai, each of which come with their own challenges and achievements. 

But they also come with train stations too. This merging of Mini Metro ideas into Mini Motorways is a good one, and it means a new degree of city planning is required as you go about your business. Movement and travel of cars is now dictated by whether a huge train is about to pass over a road junction!

Credit has to go to Dinosaur Polo Club for the way this has been integrated too. We had fears that they’d just be found slapping some Mini Metro-style visuals over the top of Motorways, but the addition of trains and stations only heightens the appeal. 

There are some new inclusions to Mini Metro as part of the whole ‘Miniversary Update’ too. A little less appealing in our eyes, but appreciated nonetheless are three of the finest cities from Mini Motorways. These are now running as new maps in Metro. Now you can mess around with the subway systems of Tokyo, Warsaw and Lisbon should you so wish. Again, new challenges await. 

The perfect time for a Game Pass drop?

It ensures that now feels like the perfect time for Dinosaur Polo Club to make the next step. To push Mini Metro and – more specifically for us at least – Mini Motorways to Xbox. If there’s the chance to make the most of Game Pass and Cloud Gaming too, then, well, no-brainer. 

Playable across Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, we’re convinced that the simple visuals but hugely addictive gameplay of both games would fit brilliantly on Xbox consoles. The controls are already simple enough and so there should be no concerns about how they would be handled by a controller. In fact, we’ve been blasting through Mini Metro and Mini Motorways on Steam Deck, and outside of playing on our MacBook during downtime, it’s a near spot on fit. 

Mini Motorways and Mini Metro need to come to Xbox

But perhaps it would be through Game Pass in which these would really shine. Combined with the power of Cloud Gaming, we can see Mini Metro and Mini Motorways having fresh life infused into them. Players would be able to utilise the likes of the Razer Kishi, GameSir X3 or Turtle Beach’s ATOM or Recon Cloud Hybrid controllers whilst on the commute. 

Can you think of anything better than creating your own railways whilst at the mercy of the real-life tracks? Or building out new city grid systems and motorways whilst you’re waiting for the rush hour to die down, pinging achievements as we go? We can’t.

C’mon Dinosaur Polo Club, do the logical thing. Bring Mini Metro and Mini Motorways to Xbox and Game Pass. We’ll take a double pack launch thanks, if only so we can take our addiction to the next level. 

Huge thanks go out to Dinosaur Polo Club. They’ve provided us access to Mini Metro, Mini Motorways and the latest update and crossovers on Steam. 

You can play Mini Metro on Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, PC and Mac right now. 

You can play Mini Motorways on Mac, Steam and Nintendo Switch.

Who knows, you might soon be able to play Mini Metro and Mini Motorways on Xbox too.