Trainz Railroad Simulator 2022 is here! The Trainz journey continues.
Well, technically speaking, TRS22 pre-orders and beta access begins today. Then “Early Access” arrives in January (including releases on the Steam and Mac App Store) and the "TRS22 Official Release" version will arrive in all stores March 2022.
This staged release process will help us ensure we cast the widest testing net possible, and allow us sufficient time to iron out any bugs and deliver a nice smooth, stable product at launch. We tossed up whether we'd call this release "Community Edition" but we figured more people would remember the TANE CE than the original Trainz CE, so we've opted for "Beta" although I think you'll find it's one of our more stable beta releases.
What has also arrived today is a brand new 20th Anniversary special offer where our Trainz Plus and Gold Class annual members will be able to keep their TRS22 version forever. This new option should remove one of the big barriers for those people who have been sitting on the fence when it comes to joining one of our membership options.
For the period of this special offer, for the same price as the store purchase for TRS22, you get a First Class Ticket, and all the Trainz Plus features (which, right now, means access to the brand new Surveyor 2.0 tools, then more Trainz Plus features throughout 2022), then you get to keep TRS22 forever (even if you cancel your membership).
All Trainz Plus and Gold Class Members can currently access the latest S20 beta version by changing their patch stream to Trainz Plus Beta. (This is done in Trainz Settings > Install > Change patch stream).
We expect to have S20 Phase 1 completed early in 2022. Throughout 2022 we’ll be adding more features to S20, as well as a range of new Trainz features as part of our ongoing Trainz Plus updates. Note that only annual members get to keep TRS22. Monthly members, of course, will retain access for as long as they are a member.
If you’re not ready to make a purchase just yet and you’d like to see S20 in operation, we’ll be running a number of live streams in our Discord channel over the coming days.
For those who haven’t heard of Discord, or joined us yet, it’s a platform a little bit like Skype or Zoom where you can chat live (either text or video) and even stream your own Trainz screen with others in the community.
Discord is also a bit like the forums here, but with a slightly different pace. It’s more like having conversations with the community rather than writing emails in a forum. We’d love to see more of you coming on over to Discord and sharing your experiences with the team and with the community.
Speaking of community, it's now 20 years since the original Trainz Community Edition was released. We've come a long, long way since then. In fact, that's a lifetime for some of our fans!
One constant in those 20 years is that every new release is met with great rejoicing and, depending on features, content, pricing, or something else, quite often great frustration by some fans.
We fully understand the passion of our community and, after 20 years sharing the highs and lows, we recognize the standards expected of each new release. We’ve learned a lot over the years and our goal with TRS22 is not to repeat past mistakes of releasing a product before it’s ready.
Part of that change in approach is that we’ve been releasing the new TRS22 content throughout the year to our members. Three of the new routes have been released to our members and thanks to their feedback, we’ve made a number of improvements and updates throughout the year. The fourth route goes out live today, and the final route will be completed early in 2022.
Each of these routes has taken many man years to develop, and the quality bar has been raised significantly. We know there's always more that can be done, and we're sure with thousands of new eyes on the content, additional areas that need updating will be identified.
We encourage you to submit your feedback through our online form.
TRS22 also raises the bar with the quality of new locos and rolling stock, and we've also included over 1,000 new scenery assets to help in your route building, and upgrade the overall standard of content that’s available.
In terms of features, all the officially released Trainz Plus features from the past three years are included in TRS22, with Unified Driver Surveyor, the new Bulk Tools, and of course Multiplayer Surveyor being introduced.
A special MPS server will come online for TRS22 users early in 2022. We’ll be posting more details about how this will work in the New Year.
With Surveyor 2.0 still being developed, this feature will remain a Trainz Plus feature until it has been fully fleshed out and then included in a future Trainz update.
I can already hear the disappointment that this feature is not included in TRS22 (or even TRS19 or TANE). As with all new features, our members have first access for a period of time while we fine tune systems, and make improvements. Once a feature is complete, it’s released to everyone via a new Trainz product.
Membership has its privileges, and we hope that our new membership special offer will see a lot more people join and enjoy the extra benefits. Ultimately, for anyone who wants to see Trainz continue to develop and get better and better, membership is the best way to support us.
I would like to close this rather long post by offering thanks to all our beta testers, both members and non-members. Trainz is an enormous project with a gargantuan amount of content created by thousands of people over the course of the last 20 years. Ensuring everything is working as expected is a team effort and reporting bugs is the best way to get any problems you discover fixed. So thanks once again to everyone who has submitted a bug report!
Here's to the next 20 years of Trainz!
Tony Hilliam
CEO, N3V Games
TRS22 Store link
Trainz Plus link
Surveyor 2.0 Online Guide
Discord Channel link