BRIO has made a couple of interesting announcements in the past couple of weeks. While details are still a little thin, here is their sneak peek at some new Wooden Railway products for 2016:

BRIO World — Railway App

BRIO’s first ever game app, BRIO World — Railway will let you build your own virtual BRIO railway complete with track, trains, accessories and characters. The worlds will be interactive and will supply “missions” for you to complete as part of the play experience. The more you interact with the game, the more your world will grow and the more features will be unlocked.

The app will sell for 2.99 EUR (with no in-app purchases) and be available for tablets, phones, and traditional computers running iOS, Android 4, and Windows 10. Read the press release on BRIO’s web site.

Character-based theme: Village

BRIO will launch a new set of character-based themes, starting with Village. Rather than try and summarize this one, I’ll quote from the press release:

Village is BRIO’s first character-based play theme that encourages boys and girls to play together with the help of stories from their own everyday life. The Village environment is constructed with modules like the Family Home and School Playsets, the Market stand and Ice-cream shop. Staying true to the BRIO spirit, it is up to every child whether to assemble the predefined modules or come up with their own creations. Everything is in the same scale as the railway sets, and themes in the BRIO World can easily be connected as part of a bigger setting.

See the press release for more information.

Other new accessories

Look for a new accessory called the Lumber Loading Set. Built with a sustainability theme in mind, it comes with trees, and tools for planting them. The Rescue theme launches in the fall, and they’ve announced three accessories: the Rescue Emergency Set, Central Firestation, and Firefighter Helicopter.