Simutrans

Simutrans

The Simutrans Team · 2016 · Simulation, Free to Play, Trains, Strategy, Management

PC
7 user reviews71% · 7
This game is free to play. Get it on Steam →

Screenshots

About Simutrans

✦ AI summary

Build and manage a transportation empire by connecting cities, industries, and attractions with rail, road, sea, and air networks while watching your company's finances and cargo flow. Simutrans stands out with its dynamic economy where factories have real contracts, citizens have individual destinations, and your transportation choices directly shape city growth and regional development.

Simutrans is a freeware and open-source transportation simulator. Your goal is to establish a successful transport company. Transport passengers, mail and goods by rail, road, ship, and even air. Interconnect districts, cities, public buildings, industries and tourist attractions by building a transport network you always dreamed of.
  • Establish a successful transport company
  • Transport passengers, mail and goods by land, air and water
  • Interconnect cities, districts, public buildings, industries and tourist attractions
  • Control and watch your finances and the traffic of your vehicles and goods
  • Lots of graphics packages to choose from
  • Play with people from anywhere in the world in online games

Several graphics packages to choose from


Before you start the game, you have various graphics packages (also called "Pakset", or "Pak" for short) to choose from (available on Steam as free DLC or as Workshop items). Paksets have a number (64, 128, 192) which stands for the tile size in pixels. The more pixels per tile, the more detailed the graphics are. There is a pakset for every player, as each pakset offers a different play style, theme and level of difficulty. Here is a short description of every pakset available as DLC:
  • Pak64: Pak64 was the first Pak for Simutrans. It is deliberately kept compact. It can be expanded with addons.
    - Graphics: Retro.
    - Difficulty: Medium.
  • Pak64.German: Pak64.German takes Germany as model.
    - Graphics: Realistic.
    - Difficulty: Challenging, but balanced.
  • Pak128: Pak128 covers all climates from desert to tundra. Vehicles mixed internationally.
    - Graphics: Realistic.
    - Difficulty: Medium, somewhat balanced.
  • Pak128.German: Pak128.German is limited to Germany.
    - Graphics: Realistic and complex.
    - Difficulty: Simple, but extensive. Complex supply chains in the movement of goods.
  • Pak128.Britain: Pak128.Britain takes England as model.
    - Graphics: Simple, unobtrusive, and uniform.
    - Difficulty: ???
  • Pak192.Comic: Pak192.Comic offers the highest tile size, with a special comic style and some details spiced with humor.
    - Graphics: Vibrant, simple, comic styled.
    - Difficulty: Different from all other paksets.
  • Others: There are more paksets, but they are not listed here nor available as DLC, because they are no longer maintained, are incomplete, or are still under construction.

Dynamic and Intelligent

  • Vehicles and Cargo
    The success of your company will depend on good planning, and we give you the tools for it. Simutrans can have buses, trucks, trains, trams, ships, airplanes, monorails, maglevs and any other vehicle that goes through air, land or water. Choose them wisely and transport the immense variety of cargo each pakset has to offer, from passengers and mail to raw materials and consumer products.
  • Cargo has Destinations
    Simutrans citizens and products don't simply jump in your vehicles and go to wherever you send them. They actually have individual destinations: people want to check out attractions, go shopping, or visit friends. Products also have their destinations - factories have contracts with each other and they won't sell or buy from anyone else. If you don't give them the possibility to go where they want, they simply won't use your transport company.
  • Complete the Chain
    Transporting products not only gives you money, but makes the economy roll. As you transport products between factories, they start producing and selling. Every factory receiving the materials it needs starts producing new goods letting you connect more and more factories across the region.
  • Influencing Cities
    Your transportation affects city growth. Every unit of anything you transport will affect the nearby cities making them grow and prosper. Sometimes cities will create new attractions and places of interest, which attract a lot more passengers. Or maybe your service may attract new industries, that give you even more opportunities. But not everything you do leads to good things - as cities grow more cars are on the roads, and you will end up trying to deal with the traffic. What you do shapes the future.

Control and Customize

  • Configure All or Nothing
    Simutrans has a lot of configurations that you can customize. If you're not a customization freak, don't worry, generally with a few options Simutrans will fit your play style. But if you are, you'll enjoy all the options and ways to change the game.
  • Build Your World
    When you create a new game, don't expect it to be a fixed world. You can shape the world to suit your needs, build roads, factories, houses, and buildings, raise and lower the terrain, create rivers, lakes, and seas, or beautify the world by planting trees.

How Do You Play?

  • Multiplayer
    Tired of playing alone? Simutrans lets you play multiplayer. You can join a public server and compete and collaborate with people all around the world. You can also play with your friends creating a private online or LAN server.
  • Hardcore or Casual?
    You can challenge yourself in a normal game, trying to make your company successful and rich. Or you can just relax and have some fun playing with no hurry or money, just for your enjoyment and the satisfaction of transporting everything.

Languages


Simutrans offers a range of languages, translated on a volunteer basis. Languages will be listed on the steam page when they reach at least 80% translation of Base Texts, and 65% translation of pak128.

History of Simutrans


Simutrans is an Open Source game developed under the Artistic License.
This game was originally developed by Hansjörg Malthaner from 1997 till 2004, before being handed over the 'The Simutrans Team' in 2005. Since the beginning it has been upgraded and updated.

DLC & expansions

What Steam players say

Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.

Recommended Jun 17, 2026
This review is for the Simutrans Extended version of the game, which is also free. I will add a guide to how to play that on steam at the end of this review. The standard version is great, but if you want really immersive passenger transport, then - well that is just one of the aspects of the extended that is... extended... I love this game. It has been my favourite game of this type over many years, maybe 20+. I don't play it so much these days - I just don't have the time, and my concentration is not what it was. If you have lots of time and want to play a game like this with a LOT of depth, then - well you have to try it and learn it. It will reward. It is still being improved and bugfixed, and the community which develops, plays and supports the game is committed and very friendly. Simutrans extended is by far for me the best way to play simutrans. It really maximises all the reasons why simutrans is above other transport/logistics sims, like TTD and even up there with modern behemoths like Workers & Resourses Soviet Republic. However, it didn't work out of the box in steam for me. The non-steam releases from the game site are free and work just fine, but if you want to have…
1 found this helpful
Recommended Jul 13, 2026
The interface takes some getting used to, but once everything clicks, designing efficient rail lines, bus routes, shipping lanes, and supply chains becomes incredibly satisfying. It's the kind of game that rewards patience and planning, and before you know it, you've spent hours tweaking a network just to shave a few minutes off a route.
Not recommended Jul 10, 2026
Game has a lot of good ideas compared to OpenTTD, but the artstyle and UI/UIX is horrible. Couldn't get into it despite hundreds of hours in OpenTTD. One particular problem I had: your passengers will want to go somewhere on the map, they have a predetermined destination, which is really cool, but you might want to see where do they actualy wanna go, i.e. which connections are the most desired, the only way to do this is a bugged map, which *sometimes* shows you an orange dot if you stare at it for minutes.
Recommended Jun 24, 2026
Its Fun
Recommended Jun 17, 2026
Very solid and satisfying, balancing varies depending on pakset, but this is a great game that should be developed more to be even greater. Biggest complaint is that it is not more popular!
Not recommended May 22, 2026
this game is for mouseheadz and call simutranfuk or simutrans gay

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