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Full Steam announcements and update articles for this title.
This update fixes a crash that occurred while removing a stop from a service that had trains very recently added to it. It is a rare case, but it accounts for all crashes in the last few versions of Iron Roads.
This update adds Builder Mode for those who want a more relaxing experience when creating their network. It isn’t challenge free, as you must still keep queues down, but you no longer need to worry about travel times.
We also fixed a bug with the layout of the monthly challenge screen, tweaked inertial scroll, and we have worked on the tutorial.
There are a few bugfixes in this update
We fixed a bug with the option to edit all trains on a service at once
Clicking on a train with some tools selected would not always select the train, we’ve fixed this
We have removed a crash in Futura that could occur when completing contracts in a specific order
We’ve also added a button to follow your trains around the network. This is for no purpose other than the satisfaction of taking a tour around your map!
This is a quality of life patch that improves the usability of the UI
We’ve added a UI scaling option so you can customise the size of text and buttons in the game
You can now upgrade all trains on a service in one go, no need to work through each train in a service now!
Town descriptions are hidden in challenge mode
We’ve made some edits to clarify text, especially around the tutorial
Thanks to all those who have sent us feedback!
There are 86 games in total, many with significant discounts, some with new demos, and all sorts of interesting announcements. There is a trailer below, and you can take a look at the festival here!
We have two goals with this patch: to fix some of the tougher bugs on our list, and iterate the balance a little based on feedback from iOS release.
For example, many people have run out of platforms to build out their network in endless, but have a surplus of power, so we’ve increased platform rewards and nudged down power generation. There is more work to do on this, so we’ll continue to iterate in future updates as we play more with the new balance changes.
The highlights of our fixes:
The currency indicators have been clarified a little to avoid them bleeding into the map (shown above)
The crash in futura that occurred if you achieved one star without researching perfume is gone
We fixed a bug with toggling custom cargo loadouts beyond the 32nd entry in the list
We stopped trains spawning on a platform just outside a nonstop zone that another train is routing to. I realise it is tough to make sense of that sentence, but it reduces nuisance lockups in a nonstop zone
We have increased the deadzones on gamepads
Android should be out on tomorrow, at which point Iron Roads will be available on all major platforms. We would like to port to Switch eventually, but after spending the last few months porting to iOS and then Android we are keen to work on something more gameplay related next!
The only gameplay change is that research progress is no longer shared between scenarios. This way each scenario stands alone as an experience, and scenario research behaviour is aligned with that of Endless mode. Other than that:
We fixed a bug with scenarios where cargo chains could stop working after reloading a save. If that has happened to you reopening that save in 0.7.6 should fix it
We fixed a bug that could cause perfume notifications to be shown too often
We fixed a lockup that could occur if you manually duplicate files in the save folder
Thanks as always to those who have sent us feedback leading to these fixes!
Iron Roads released on iOS a few days ago, and such is the scale of the App Store more people have played in the last few days, than in the last few years. The larger player base is heartening, but it has unearthed a few well hidden crashes that we are fixing with this small patch
- There is a fix for a bug that could cause a crash with long trains exiting non-stop zones
- Drawing stations off the edge of the map is now disallowed, as it caused a crash
After a year of feedback and updates, we are now in a position to expand the Early Access version of Iron Roads to mobile platforms.
Today we are excited to release it on Apple’s App Store for iPhones, iPads, Mac and Apple TV!
We need a bit more time to polish the Android version so that will arrive in April.
This doesn’t change anything for Steam players. The game is identical across all platforms, with the only difference being in the interface. We will continue to develop it as we have been, keeping all platforms in sync. We have also taken this opportunity to refresh the Steam page with new screenshots and an updated video!
With mobile in mind, we’ve also added Cloud sync for save games. If you sign in with Discord to both Steam and Mobile versions, your save game is synced across devices. This also works if you want to synchronise the game across different Steam copies.
0.7.5 is a small maintenance patch ahead of mobile release on Thursday!
Iron Roads will now switch out of gamepad mode if you use mouse or keyboard, and back again when the gamepad is used. This should make it easier for those who are mixing inputs. This patch also fixes:
A bug with Desert Dew scenario where aluminium was being created rather than Desert Dew!
A bug with nonstop zones that broke stations with nonstop zones at each end
A formatting error with growth notifications
The headline feature in this update is controller support. With a controller plugged in you should see the Steam Deck control icons appear onscreen. This is brand new, so if you have any issues with us, please get in touch!
Currently we haven't tested this with controllers other than SteamDeck and Xbox, so if you are using a playstation controller, or a nintendo pro controller, and you have issues, please get in touch as we'd love to support all controllers,
Since Beta 3 perfume was required to grow towns, but it was not required to maintain them. The same has long been true of train parts. Unfortunately this led to those resources stockpiling. To solve that:
Perfume is required to maintain large towns. If you fail to supply it to them, they will shrink!
Train parts are required to maintain more advanced trains and keep them running well
This improves the late game, as you need to keep these chains running well, not just create a stockpile of resources and move on.
We've also been fixing bugs and other issues. Some notable ones:
Save games are trimmed in size. Some history is now dropped from graphs, but large games load and save much faster
The town badge highlights passengers that have been waiting too long by showing the number in red and bouncing the icon
An issue where the perfume contracts would not complete has been fixed
The edit service will now show an add town button when a stop is obscured by the window so you can add it to the route!
The R&D token count is shown on the research screen
There is back button on train info screen so you can more easily check statistics when buying a train
A problem was fixed that stopped some waypoints from being added to routes
Thanks as always for the feedback, enjoy the update!
The headline feature for the update we are currently testing in the beta branch is controller support, but we've just pushed a new build to that branch to fix a number of bugs:
Save games are trimmed in size, some history is now removed from graphs, but large games load and save much faster. This also removes an occasional crash with very large games
The town badge highlights passengers that have been waiting too long by showing the number in red and bouncing the icon
An issue where the perfume contracts would not complete has been fixed
The edit service will now show an add town button when a stop is beneath is so you can add that more easily!
The R&D count is shown on the research screen
There is back button on train info screen so you can more easily check statistics when buying a train
To access the beta branch
Open the Steam client library page
Right-click on your copy of Iron Roads in the library page and select Properties
Choose the Betas tab
Click the Beta Participation dropdown and choose beta-test. You should not need a password
We'd love to hear any thoughts from Steam Deck users in particular about the controller support, but as always any feedback is gratefully accepted!
The first build of Iron Roads with Controller support is up on the Steam `beta` branch. This is largely aimed at Steam Deck users, but it should work for any controller
If you are interested in trying it
Open the Steam client library page
Right-click on your copy of Iron Roads in the lirary page and select Properties
Choose the Betas tab
Click the Beta Participation dropdown and choose beta-test
As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts if you try it!
This is a small patch to fix some issues with zoom in Beta 3
The aspect ratio of the initial map now matches the aspect ratio of your screen, which means that zooming out fully will now show you the full map when you start
Zooming is no longer capped, you can keep zooming until you see the entire map. If that means you go beyond the boundaries of the map, clouds are shown as shown in the screenshot below
Thanks to those who sent us such feedback about this!
If 0.6.7’s Quality of Life fixes were the crowd pleasers of Early Access patches, then Beta 3 could be thought of as Iron Roads’ difficult second album.
In the biggest set of gameplay changes since Early Access launch, we have changed Iron Roads' default play mode from scenarios to the new Endless mode. Endless mode represents a new, randomly-generated play mode, in which you start with just three towns needing connection. If you serve them well, they expand and you are rewarded with R&D tokens that you can exchange for map expansions to add towns and systems to your map. Start small, end devilishly complex!
What if you really liked scenarios, I hear you cry out? They are all still there, along with the time-bounded monthly challenge - we just don't expect players to be playing these by default and as the main gameplay.
Feedback from players revealed a few issues we wanted to address:
Iron Roads had 4 modes of play, which was too many for a minimalist management game. Worst of all, no single mode contained all the best content. So we've cut down the modes, merging what we believe are the best elements of Iron Roads into the new Endless mode
We want players to be able to start simple and scale up to something complex. Scenarios are fixed in scale. They are either too small, limiting how much you can develop your network, or they are too big, and risk overwhelm. The map in the new Endless mode grows with your network
Scenarios have limited replayability. In Endless mode games are more randomly generated. The player shapes the game and the map through their choices when playing, rather than our choices when building the scenario
A new 'Issues' screen lists things that are stopping your network from flowing or expanding, such as stuck trains, towns with insufficient connections or arrivals, platforms that are too short, and long waits. This list should act as an active to-do list to help network optimisation
The old Free Play mode is gone, but Infinite Resources can now be turned on at any time from the preferences. Cheat at will! (except in challenges)
In the Endless mode resources are now needed to grow towns beyond a certain size (perfume at easier difficulties, Desert Dew at the harder difficulty)
Star unlocks for scenarios are gone. You can now play any scenario at any time
The old sandbox mode has been removed in favour of Endless mode
We've added a help button to all build modes. Click it, and it will show a small help screen with a link to the tutorial when appropriate
We've added an Undo button at last. Click it to revert your last construction/deletion
The currency indicators have been moved from the toolbar to the left hand side. This obscures less of the map with UI, and makes it clear that they are there
The speed selector has been split into 3 separate buttons, so there is no more toggling through speed modes!
We have overhauled the visual style of the research and graphs screens
We have worked further on the town screen to improve information messages
We have improved the UI scaling calculation to choose a more appropriate UI scale on large screens
We have added some missing hotkeys
The game no longer blocks deletion of track containing a train, instead it deletes the track and removes any trains no longer on tracks after a delete
Deselect completed contract (don’t keep showing it)
Disable the growth button when not viable
Stations snap to horizontal/vertical when building at all times, rather than the behaviour before where they would sometimes fail to build at angles
We have fixed a large number of text overlap issues
We have fixed a bug where it would double charge for track when placing stations
There are a number of performance improvements to allow for networks with hundreds of thousands of passengers and cargo units on the board
It is a big change so we'd love to hear your thoughts on the changes! Most likely that will result in some smaller patches tweaking balance, but the next big feature we are planning is controller support. If you have a Steam Deck and are interested in testing that we'd love to hear from you!
A tester recently shared an interesting save game with around 100k passengers and cargo units on the board. Unfortunately it was running a little slowly, but it has been a great test case to improve performance. This update to the `beta` has a number of performance improvements for large games.
It also fixes:
Thanks to all those who have given us feedback on the current `beta`, please keep it coming! If you have not yet tried the preview of Beta 3 and would like to, there are notes on how here.
If 0.6.7’s Quality of Life fixes were the crowd pleasers of Early Access patches, then the update we’ve been working on recently could be thought of as Iron Roads’ difficult second album.
In the biggest set of gameplay changes since Early Access launch, we have changed Iron Roads' default play mode from scenarios to the new Endless mode. Endless mode represents a new, randomly-generated play mode, in which you start with just three towns needing connection. If you serve them well, they expand and you are rewarded with R&D tokens that you can exchange for map expansions to add towns and systems to your map. Start small, end devilishly complex!
If you'd like to try Endless mode, we'd love to hear your feedback. We have pushed a build to the beta branch - there are notes on how to try that here
What if you really liked scenarios, I hear you cry out? They are all still there, along with the time-bounded monthly challenge - we just don't expect players to be playing these by default and as the main gameplay.
Feedback from players revealed a few issues we wanted to address:
Iron Roads had 4 modes of play, which was too many for a minimalist management game. Worst of all, no single mode contained all the best content. So we've merged what we believe are the best elements of Iron Roads into the new Endless mode
We want players to be able to start simple and scale up to something complex. Scenarios are fixed in scale. They are either too small, limiting how much you can develop your network, or they are too big, and risk overwhelm. The map in the new Endless mode grows with your network
Scenarios have limited replayability. In Endless mode games are more randomly generated. The player shapes the game and the map through their choices when playing, rather than our choices when building the scenario
A new 'Issues' screen lists things that are stopping your network from flowing or expanding, such as stuck trains, towns with insufficient connections or arrivals, platforms that are too short, and long waits. This list should act as an active to-do list to help network optimisation
The old Free Play mode is gone, but Infinite Resources can now be turned on at any time from the preferences. Cheat at will! (except in challenges)
In the Endless mode perfume is now needed to grow towns beyond a certain size
Star unlocks for scenarios are gone. You can now play any scenario at any time
The old sandbox mode has been removed in favour of Endless mode
We've added a help button to all build modes. Click it, and it will show a small help screen with a link to the tutorial when appropriate
We've added an Undo button at last. Click it to revert your last construction/deletion
The currency indicators have been moved from the toolbar to the left hand side. This obscures less of the map with UI, and makes it clear that they are there
The speed selector has been split into 3 separate buttons, so there is no more toggling through speed modes!
We have overhauled the visual style of the research and graphs screens
We have worked further on the town screen to improve information messages
Deselect completed contract (don’t keep showing it)
Disable the growth button when not viable
Stations snap to horizontal/vertical when building at all times, rather than the behaviour before where they would sometimes fail to build at angles
We have fixed a large number of text overlap issues
All our recent patch notes seem to contain a variant of A big update is coming, but we aren’t quite there yet…, so it is with relief that I can tell you this particular butterfly is ready to emerge from its chrysalis, with quality of life fixes in tow.
No more need to memorise town names! When editing a route, buttons will appear directly on the map to add a town to the end of the route. The old UI remains to fine tune the route, but for the most part you won’t need to use it.
The town screen is an interesting problem for a designer. Iron Roads’ minimalist aesthetic is a core part of its identity, but for the game to have depth, players need information on how their network is performing. The town screen had become a dumping ground for us to add in this detail, and the screen had become crowded over time.
The most important question the town screen can answer is why is my town is not growing? because the answer to that is also the answer to what should I do next?. To simplify this, we’ve added a new issues display up top of the town screen to summarise growth problems. This saves you from reading the growth numbers scattered across this screen like tea leaves. All the information we had previously is still there on the new screen, but has now been collected together in an infographic for clarity.
Maps in sandbox used a very small subset of the available landscape tiles, and as a result they were aesthetically lacking. The new generator uses the WFC algorithm to fill shorelines with a wide range of tiles and patterns.
There has been a lot of feedback that town badges are too large, and cover critical map space. We’ve added a smaller variant of the town badge with just the name that shows at low zoom levels. It will automatically swap back to the previous badge as you zoom in.
When a town grows, the game rewards you with resources. Previously it was necessary to click to collect this reward. The intention was to ensure players understood where the funds were coming from, but collecting rewards became irritating busy work. The reward indicator still shows in the updated version, but closes automatically, animating the reward into place.
It has been pointed out to us that rather than connecting all towns together, the best strategy for success in Iron Roads is to connect only a few towns. Small clusters of connected towns are easier to manage, and grow more quickly. We think it is unfortunate when a transportation game encourages you not to transport. To solve this, we have added a feature where town growth is contingent on a minimum number of other towns it is connected to. This should naturally encourage fully connecting your towns.
For now this is only in the monthly challenge (from september onwards), but if it goes well, we will enable it in other modes.
Although numerous, these fixes have not been our primary focus. The majority of our efforts have been directed at unifying the content of Iron Roads in a single game mode. Currently you can play Iron Roads in scenario, freeplay, challenge and sandbox modes. This proliferation of modes has split our focus, and makes the game confusing, so we are looking to merge that functionality and create fewer, better modes.
Testing should start soon(ish), but there are likely a few big update is coming, but we aren’t quite there yet… patch notes before we are ready to release!
We've fixed:
A bug with the cargo chooser that could cause issues with custom loadouts
A crash that could occur after removing a stop from a service
A bug where clicking the arrivals table could jump to random screens
A display bug that occurs when jumping to the graphs from the top bar
A bug with the layout of contracts
A bug where the speed reported in the train screen can exceed the train's maximum speed
We've done a lot of work on making Iron Roads smoother to play recently, and those changes are collected into the 0.6.7 update that we have just pushed to the beta branch.
If you are interested in trying it there are instructions on how to try Steam betas here. We'd love to hear your thoughts!
No more need to memorise town names! When editing a route, buttons will appear directly on the map to add a town to the end of the route. The old UI remains to fine tune the route, but for the most part you won’t need to use it.
The town screen is an interesting problem for a designer. Iron Roads’ minimalist aesthetic is a core part of its identity, but for the game to have depth, players need information on how their network is performing. The town screen had become a bit of a dumping ground for us to add in this detail, and the screen had become crowded over time.
The most important question the town screen can answer is why is my town is not growing? because the answer to that is also the answer to what should I do next?. To simplify this, we’ve added a new *issues* display up top of the town screen to summarise growth problems. This saves you from reading the growth numbers scattered across this screen like tea leaves. All the information we had previously is still there on the new screen, but have now been collected together in an infographic for clarity.
There is a new map generator. Maps in sandbox used a very small subset of the available landscape tiles, and as a result they were aesthetically lacking. The new generator uses the WFC algorithm to fill the shorelines with a wide range of tiles and patterns.
There has been a lot of feedback that town badges are too large, and cover critical map space. We’ve added a smaller variant of the town badge with just the name that shows at low zoom levels. It will automatically swap back to the previous badge as you zoom in.
When a town grows, the game rewards you with resources. Previously it was necessary to click to collect this reward. The intention was to ensure players understood where the funds were coming from, but collecting rewards became irritating busy work. The reward indicator still shows in the updated version, but closes automatically, animating the reward into place.
We've fixed:
A bug with the cargo chooser that could cause issues with custom loadouts
A crash that could occur after removing a stop from a service
A bug where clicking the arrivals table could jump to random screens
About
This page aggregates Steam news feeds, patch notes, and developer announcements for Iron Roads, sourced from official Steam community posts.
Major updates, balance changes, and seasonal events often correlate with player-count spikes — cross-reference announcements here with the live charts on the main Iron Roads statistics page.
Articles link back to Steam for full changelogs. SteamScope refreshes news entries as new posts are published to the game's Steam hub.
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