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OpenTTD is an open source port of the Chris Sawyer game Transport Tycoon Deluxe to C using a disassembly of the original game binaries. Originally closed source, the conversion process from assembly language to C was performed single handedly by Ludvig Strigeus between mid-2002 and March 2004. Since then, the game has seen much development and has even reached the top ten most active projects on SourceForge. Thanks to the OpenTTD developers and patch submitters, OpenTTD has become arguably the best Transport Tycoon Deluxe spin-off. Thanks to its use of the SDL cross platform graphics and sound layer, it works on virtually any operating system in common usage, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, Linux, OS/2, FreeBSD,Palm OS,Pocket PC, MorphOS officially supported, with SkyOS and RISC OS supported through unofficial ports. However, it does not officially run on DOS, despite DOS being the primary platform on which Transport Tycoon ran.

OpenTTD duplicates the original game feature-wise but also has numerous additions, including canals, revised rail station construction and additional airports. Perhaps the most significant feature compared to the original game is its multiplayer capability. It offers LAN and Internet play via public, world-wide servers for up to ten players.

It incorporates many features from TTDPatch, and like TTDPatch it is available under the GPL. Both OpenTTD and TTDPatch are not totally standalone games — while OpenTTD does not need the Transport Tycoon Deluxe executables, it does need the game graphics files. However, there is currently an effort to devise a new graphics standard (and new graphics) to eliminate this need, for legal reasons.

Due to the nature of its coming to be, namely from disassembling official game binaries, the legal status of the project is still uncertain. Some have claimed fair use rights, whereas in some jurisdictions it would remain illegal in all cases due to its illegal (in said jurisdictions) origins, regardless of whether or not any original code was written out. The original game as published by Microprose has had a number of owners in recent years, namely Hasbro and Infogrames (which was later renamed Atari). However, Atari has not shown any interest in the project, and does not seem interested in pursuing any claim of copyright infringement, for the moment.