Simutrans — Business Sim
Simutrans is a free and open-source transport simulation game in which you build and run a successful transport company, moving passengers, mail and goods by rail, road, tram, ship and air between cities, industries and tourist attractions. First released in 1997, it has been open source under the Artistic License 1.0 since 2007 and remains actively developed, with the current stable release being version 125.0. It is the closest modern relative of the classic Transport Tycoon idea — a deep business and construction simulator you can pick up, customise and play for free, with no ads and no account required.
Key Features
- Multiple transport modes — railways, roads, trams, monorail, maglev, ships and aircraft, which you link into your own freight and passenger networks.
- Interconnected production chains — coal feeds power plants, oil feeds refineries, and goods flow down to shops; supplying industries with power and connectivity raises output and lets you tune the economy.
- Paksets for endless customisation — the game engine loads separate graphics-and-data packs (pak64, pak128, pak128.Britain and more), so the look and balance of the whole game can be swapped.
- Online multiplayer — join or host games through the in-game server browser, with a dedicated headless server build for long-running shared worlds.
- Twelve AI opponents — compete against AI-run transport companies that build their own networks.
- Freely modifiable terrain — tunnels and bridges can be stacked for subways or highways, with a day/night cycle, climates and seasons.
- Scriptable engine — deep mechanics can be tuned via the config file, and objects are built from simple image and description files, making it easy to add a house or a train yourself.
- Very light on hardware — a 2D isometric engine that runs comfortably on older PCs and modest hardware.
Why Use It?
Simutrans gives you a complete, genuinely open transport-and-logistics simulator with two and a half decades of community development — no ads, no in-app purchases, no DRM and no account. The paksets mean you can change the entire graphical style and ruleset, and there is an active forum and wiki plus the feature-rich Simutrans-Extended fork if you want even deeper mechanics.
Use Cases
- Building large passenger and freight networks that interconnect cities, industries and attractions.
- Learning and running the economics of a logistics company — costs, production chains and subsidies.
- Relaxed sandbox construction of bus, tram, rail and maglev systems against AI rivals.
- Co-operative or competitive multiplayer on a self-hosted server.
- Trying out different gameplay via alternate paksets and community-made object sets.
Platforms
Windows · macOS · Linux · Haiku · AmigaOS 4. Also available on Steam (Windows, Linux and Mac).
Licence
Free and open source — the source code is licensed under the Artistic License 1.0.
Similar Tools
- OpenTTD — an open-source Transport Tycoon Deluxe remake, the other classic free transport simulator in the directory.