OpenTTD 16.0 Beta1 Ships With Reversing Trains and Open-Join Multiplayer

The first beta of OpenTTD 16, the open-source remake of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, is out for community testing. Headline additions include trains that can drive backwards, multiplayer companies that anyone can join without an invite, and a batch of map-generation improvements such as desert rocks, cleaner coastlines near map edges, era-gated transmitter spawning, and configurable average land height.

The release also targets economy and quality-of-life pain points: subsidies now apply to CargoDist-routed cargo, cargo-payment aging can be scaled so slow vehicles stay profitable on large maps, dropdown lists gain text filters, and vehicle preview offers are consolidated into a single window instead of a flood of pop-ups. Players can also save custom collections of NewGRF objects, stations, and houses in picker windows.

Alongside the beta, the project opened its OpenTTD 16 Title Game Competition on TT-Forums, inviting the community to design and vote on the demo game that loops behind the main menu — the same community-driven process that produced the current Toyland title game. Testers are asked to file bugs against the beta.