Sid Meier's Railroads Deserves a Modern Remake

Key Takeaways

• Sid Meier's Railroads! launched in 2006 and still has 108 concurrent Steam players today
• PC Gamer's 2009 Reinstall column called the game 'cruelly ignored upon release'
• Firaxis remade several Meier classics in the early 2000s, but Railroads hasn't received the same treatment

Sid Meier's Railroads! came out in 2006. As of this week, 108 people are playing it on Steam. For a 19-year-old train business sim that PC Gamer once called 'cruelly ignored upon release,' that's not nothing.

PC Gamer recently dug into its magazine archives and republished a 2009 Reinstall column by Tim Edwards. The piece makes a case that still holds: Railroads! captured something special about business competition as play, and it never got the audience it deserved.

The Firaxis Remake Era

The early 2000s were busy years for Firaxis. The studio systematically remade Sid Meier's older strategy games from the 1980s and 1990s in 3D. Pirates! got the treatment. Railroads! got the treatment. Both were follow-ups to titles that had defined their genres decades earlier.

Here's the math that makes PC Gamer's argument compelling: those remakes are now older than the originals were when Firaxis remade them. If Civilization, Pirates, and Railroads warranted fresh versions in 2004-2006, the same logic applies today.

What Made Railroads! Work

Tim Edwards' original column gets at what made the game stick. Railroads! wasn't a hardcore signal-and-junction sim. It wasn't a spreadsheet of ticket prices and maintenance costs. It sat somewhere in between, finding what Edwards called Sid Meier's trademark 'lightness of touch.'

The game distilled business competition into something playable. You built rail networks, connected industries, outmaneuvered rivals. The complexity was there, but it never overwhelmed the fun.

Edwards wrote that Meier has 'a reputation for cutting through to the core of what makes games interesting.' Civilization, after all, is a family-friendly game about genocide, religious warfare, and slavery. Railroads! applied that same design philosophy to 19th-century capitalism.

The Exclamation Point Legacy

PC Gamer's archive dive also celebrates a running joke in Meier's catalog: the exclamation point. Sid Meier's Pirates! Sid Meier's Railroads! The punctuation suggests enthusiasm. Meier is psyched about trains. He's psyched about pirates. He's apparently psyched about Gettysburg.

The piece jokes that last year's Civilization 7 would have been 'perfect on release' if Firaxis had just called it Sid Meier's Civilization 7! instead. That game struggled at launch and only recently received the big update it needed.

The Case for a New Version

Train simulation as a genre hasn't gone anywhere. Transport Tycoon derivatives still sell. Railroad Corporation came out in 2019. Railway Empire got a sequel in 2023. Players clearly want to build rail empires.

What's missing is Meier's design sensibility. The balance between accessibility and depth. The business competition as game mechanic rather than spreadsheet exercise. Railroads! found that balance in 2006. A 2025 version, with modern graphics and expanded systems, could find it again.

Firaxis is busy with Civilization. But somewhere in the catalog sits a train game that 108 people are still playing two decades later. That's not a huge number. It is, however, the kind of dedication that suggests something worth revisiting.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Sid Meier's Railroads still playable?

Yes. The 2006 game is available on Steam and still has an active player base. As of this week, 108 concurrent players were online.

Will Firaxis remake Sid Meier's Railroads?

Firaxis has not announced any Railroads remake. The studio is currently focused on Civilization 7 updates and other projects.

What kind of game is Sid Meier's Railroads?

It's a business simulation focused on building railroad networks in the 19th century. Unlike hardcore train sims, it emphasizes accessible gameplay and competition over micromanagement.

Why does Sid Meier put exclamation points in game titles?

It's a design tradition suggesting enthusiasm. Pirates! and Railroads! both carry the punctuation. PC Gamer jokes it should have been Civilization 7! as well.

Source: PCGamer latest