Auran was a game development and publishing company based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was founded in 1995 by Greg Lane and Graham Edelsten. Auran released its first game Dark Reign: The Future of War in 1997.
Auran was best known for developing the Trainz railroad simulator series, which uses their self-developed middleware game engine Auran Jet. After focusing almost entirely on those games from 2001-2007, the studio branched out with Battlestar Galactica and Fury, both released in 2007.
Auran also published a number of games for the Australian market, including Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich, Shadowgrounds and Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday. In 2005 Auran directors Graham Edelsten and Tony Hilliam founded the publishing company n3vrf41l Publishing and it was first announced in May 2006. N3vrf41l would take over publishing activities so Auran could focus entirely on game development. As a separate company, N3vrf41l licensed Auran's titles.
On 17th December 2007 Auran Games went into voluntary administration and a majority of the staff was laid off, except for a small group to continue work on the Trainz series. Eventually Auran became a subsidiary of n3vrf41l and the company disappeared. Auran still remains as a brand / division of n3vrf41l, which changed its name N3V Games Pty Ltd. around 2009 and now continues development of the Trainz series. They also create games based on new franchises. Co-founder Greg Lane had already left Auran in 2005 and became the CTO at MyVirtualHome.
