Tyrian 2000, OpenTyrian and Enhanced Edition: what is the difference?
Four names around the same shoot‑'em‑up. Where each one comes from, and what each offers today.
On this page
The short answer
- Tyrian is the original game, a vertical shoot‑'em‑up released for MS-DOS in 1995. Tyrian 2000 is its last version: Tyrian 2000 (1999) adds episode 5 to Tyrian (1995).
- OpenTyrian is an open-source rewrite of Tyrian in C that runs on modern systems. It plays the freeware Tyrian 2.1 data, four episodes.
- OpenTyrian2000 is a fork of OpenTyrian that aims to replicate Tyrian 2000, with its data.
- OpenTyrian2000 Enhanced Edition builds on OpenTyrian2000 and runs on a new engine, written in Rust and Godot 4, that plays the Tyrian 2000 data and adds optional modes, display options, modding and six interface languages.
How we got here
Tyrian was made by a small team calling itself Eclipse Software and published by Epic MegaGames. According to Wikipedia, the shareware release of September 1995 had one episode and the registered version had three; version 2.0 added a fourth episode and two-player play, as the shmups.wiki history of the versions records. In 1999 XSIV Games released Tyrian 2000, with episode 5, new ships and the Timed Battle mode (Wikipedia).
The game was re-released as freeware in 2004. In February 2007 the original Pascal and assembly source code was handed to volunteers, who rewrote it in C as OpenTyrian, under the GNU GPL (Wikipedia). OpenTyrian2000 forked OpenTyrian to recreate Tyrian 2000 as closely as possible.
The Enhanced Edition builds on OpenTyrian2000. It keeps the Tyrian 2000 campaign on a new engine, with Rust for the game logic and Godot 4 for display, sound and input, and adds Endless Arcade (Endless Mode in the menu), optional modern effects, achievements, three music engines and mods. Its first release is v1.0-rc1, a release candidate.
The full story, with the people behind the original game and the sources used, is on the wiki's History page.
Side-by-side comparison
What each version offers today, as described by its own documentation.
| Tyrian 2000 | OpenTyrian | OpenTyrian2000 | Enhanced Edition v1.0-rc1 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | The original game (1999) | C rewrite of Tyrian | Fork of OpenTyrian | New Rust + Godot 4 engine |
| Game data | Tyrian 2000 | Tyrian 2.1 (freeware) | Tyrian 2000 (freeware) | Tyrian 2000 (freeware), included |
| Episodes | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| On a modern PC | DOS emulator such as DOSBox | Native | Native | Native |
| Systems | DOS-era PC | Windows, macOS, Linux builds | See its repository | Windows 64-bit, Linux x86_64, Steam Deck, macOS (experimental) |
| Code licence | Proprietary | GPL-2.0 | GPL-2.0 | GPL-2.0-or-later |
| Network play | Yes | Yes, from the command line | From the command line, untested | Not available yet |
| Local two players | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, campaign and Endless |
| Endless Arcade, mutators, bullet time | No | No | No | Yes, all optional |
| HD (AI) art, sharp pixel art, CRT filters | No | No | No | Yes |
| Mods (JSON and PNG) and level editor | No | No | No | Yes |
| Status | Final version of the original | Released builds on GitHub | See its repository | Release candidate, playable from start to finish |
Sources: Wikipedia and shmups.wiki for the original game, the OpenTyrian and OpenTyrian2000 repositories, the Enhanced Edition's own documentation, and the sources listed on the wiki's Sources and credits page.
Is the Enhanced Edition still the same Tyrian?
Yes, when you want it to be. The campaign is the Tyrian 2000 campaign: the same five episodes, shops, weapons, routes and secret levels, read from the original data files. The simulation was checked tick by tick against recorded games of the C code it descends from, so a run plays out the same way.
Everything new is a choice. Visual Effects set to Off and the Classic explosion style give the pure 1995 look; mutators, bullet time and damage numbers can all be switched off. HD (AI) art and the CRT filters only change how the picture is drawn, as explained on Tyrian in HD.
When to pick something else
- You want network play today: OpenTyrian offers it; the Enhanced Edition does not yet.
- You want the exact original program: run Tyrian 2000 itself in DOSBox. GOG offers Tyrian 2000 free of charge, packaged with DOSBox.
- You want a finished, stable release: the Enhanced Edition is at its first release candidate, not yet 1.0. Its known issues are listed on the download page.
Play Tyrian 2000 with the Enhanced Edition
It is free, needs no original copy and runs without an emulator. See Play Tyrian on Windows 10 and 11 or the Steam Deck guide, or read the project facts on About.
Questions, bugs, ideas?
Tell us what you think of the Enhanced Edition: we read every message.
Write to us