If you’re familiar with strategy game legend Sid Meier, you may have fond memories of his seminal title, Sid Meier’s Railroads! Well if you were wondering if it would ever be playable in the palm of your hand…now it can, courtesy of Feral Interactive.

Sid Meier’s Railroads! Is the third instalment of the Railroad Tycoon franchise, and the first to feature Sid Meier after its initial release. It’s also one of the most fondly remembered PC strategy games of all time, right up there with Sid Meier’s Civilization series.

So who better to bring this game to mobile than Feral Interactive? Having performed such miraculous feats as bringing Alien Isolation to smartphones, and partnering closely with companies such as Relic Entertainment and Creative Assembly to release a number of entries from their Total War franchise to mobile, their latest release from the annals of PC game history is out now on Android and iOS.

Railroading players

Feral making another port is not surprising, as the developer has made its reputation by creating high quality mobile versions of famous PC titles, old and new. However, it offers an insight into their business model, and a surprising reversal of the usual received wisdom. Priced at $12.99, by all accounts a more-than fifteen year-old game should not see any success, but clearly Feral are aware that Sid Meier’s catalogue has its dedicated fans.

It could also be argued that, with the difficulty that can be found in running a game like this – and other titles Feral have ported (Rome: Total War) – on modern systems, that a mobile port may be one of the few stable ways fans can revisit these classics. In other words, Feral are clearly banking on there being enough Sid Meier fans on mobile, hankering to return to one of their favourite titles, to support this latest release.

Last month, a Socialpeta report examined the performance of the strategy genre on Google Play and the App Store.