'Railroads Online' is a specific game made for a specific group of people, and if you find yourself in that group? There's nothing better.
Creativity is a powerful tool that can make or break the enjoyment of an experience. Railroads Online is the perfect example of that. While incredibly versatile in its creative prowess, it doesn't offer much at the moment for those who just want to turn off their brain and drive some classic trains. However, if you're willing to spend some time to learn more about how the game functions? You're in for one heck of a ride.
If you're not feeling creative, Railroads Online is likely not going to be the game for you. At least, it won't be right now. Currently, there are no options for pre-built tracks. For any map I selected, I needed to lay tracks, buildings, and everything in between to make sure I had the optimal route for my fledgling delivery company. I had to get a lay of the land, survey, and discover what type of rails I would need.
It's a game that demands a fair bit of your time. I tried to jump in without going through the tutorial and spent a solid 30 minutes running around trying to place a track. Only then to discover my train would stop shortly after starting, due to the tracks not being high enough. Railroads Online has quite the learning curve and is the very definition of a simulator. But once everything started clicking into place like an intricate puzzle, I started to enjoy my time in its world.
The sheer number of possibilities I had when laying tracks was impressive, if not incredibly daunting. Even during my time playing Railroads Online, I was still learning. There is an in-game wiki available that could help me figure out exactly what specific pieces were for, while also giving me some in-depth history about the different vehicles I could command. For a train buff, I can't think of a better game.
While I'm not one to know every small detail about the world of classic trains, this will be a dream come true for a specific type of player. The sheer amount of detail put into every facet of Railroads Online was genuinely impressive and shows that the development team respects and loves the classic trains of the Steam era.
The biggest draw of Railroads Online is the trains themselves. Getting a chance to command these hulking replicas of yesteryear is surprisingly quite fun, especially once you've finally learned all of the ropes. Depending on the difficulty level I chose to play on, I could just hop in and take off, or I would need to monitor several different valves to ensure that my locomotive was running at an optimal pace.
First, I would need enough water in the tank. If I didn't, my days driving a steam engine would quickly come to a close. I needed fuel to keep the boiler hot, and I needed sand for the rails if the slopes got too steep. Honestly? At first, it was incredibly daunting, and I never thought I would get the hang of it. After a while, I proved myself wrong and was heading out on solo expeditions that took me around the map. All on tracks that I had placed myself. It was incredibly satisfying and rewarding, even if it was a bit frustrating at times.
As with many simulators, some technical flaws bring the flow of Railroads Online to a screeching halt. The first is the overabundance of controls. There are a lot of different commands in Railroads Online, and until I learned what all of them did, there was a great chance that I may accidentally delete a large portion of my track.
Performance issues and shimmering are also abundant, at least on the console releases of the game. Audio was also originally an issue, but a hotfix by the development team got me back into the world of Railroads Online without having to wear earplugs.
As I mentioned before, it takes a while before Railroads Online starts cooking with gas. Or in this case, steam. It is a very slow game to start up and requires a lot of adjustments before it finally starts running like a finely tuned machine. Once it did finally get up and running, I didn't want it to stop.
The lack of pre-made tracks could be a deal breaker for some. Honestly, there were some days when I didn't want to expand the business that I was working on and would have loved an opportunity to just hop into one of these classic cars and head off wherever it would take me. Since the game is officially in Full Release, it's a bit disappointing to find out that pre-made tracks won't be released until Q1 2025. If you don't have that creative bug in you, hold off on purchasing it until this happens.
That doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of opportunities to jump in and see what is going on in the world, though. There's a reason why it's called Railroads Online. Even on the Xbox Series X, there were a fair number of lobbies available. Any lobby I jumped into, people were friendly and all seemed to be there for one thing: their love of classic locomotives. It seems like a very tight-knit community, and Railroads Online could be a genuine blast to play with friends. Or even randoms, in my particular case.
Having to manually fill these trains with water, fuel, coal, and everything in between was surprisingly interesting and fun. While I've seen several Steam Engines, getting to see how they work under the hood was a nice little surprise.
If creativity is your strong suit, Railroads Online is a one-of-a-kind experience. Its love of history for these classic rail cars is beautiful, even with its annoyances and flaws. Plotting out a rail track is much more enjoyable than it has any right being, and the feeling of seeing your train roll on without any hiccups is strangely satisfying.
That being said, if you aren't a creative person? This may not be the game for you. At least, until the development team puts out additional patches that add the ability to cruise on pre-made maps. Even then, I would recommend at least giving it a try before this hits. You never know if you may enjoy building a railroad between these different shops and storehouses.