Last Train Home is a fictional strategy game set around the end of the Great War. Following a group of Czechoslovak soldiers, players embark on a journey to escape a civil war torn Russia and return to their homeland. Part base management and part RTS, Last Train Home scratches all the right itches for the strategy hound in me. The demo I got my hands on only contained two sections with a handful of missions, but if they are any indicator, I’ll be ready to catch the train when the full game releases in a few short weeks.
Last Train Home is a road trip story about getting the hell out of Russia. The war is over and your crew of soldiers are returning home, via armored train. The opening cutscene depicts a map marred by war and is narrated by a soldier reflecting on the atrocities of war in their native tongue. Anyone who has played a Call of Duty game will instantly be reminded of those titles’ pre-mission cutscenes. It paints a bleak picture and sets the mood for the rest of your railway misadventure.
Your train is your base of operations. Here you’ll set train speeds, assign soldiers to tasks, and keep track of your resources. Tasks for soldiers include engineering the train, completing repairs, or being sent out for resources. My favorite aspect in this overworld portion of the game was sending soldiers out to scout for resources in villages and points of interests along the tracks. These excursions could go one of two ways; the game gives you some flavor texts that build up the world and give you a decision to make, altering the resources you get for your efforts, or you get a side-mission that pulls you into the RTS portion of the game. I like the risk and reward gameplay involved with excursions. You may be coming back with more food for the train, but your soldiers’ low health may keep them from going out on the next mission.
In the overworld you’ll also find yourself bumping into random events. At one point my train was brought to a halt by a downed tree on the tracks. I was given the option of cleaning up the downed tree or ramming it with the train and risking damage to both the train and its passengers. I enjoyed these random events and look forward to what else the full game may throw at me in my travels. Last Train Home will offer some customization to your train. I didn’t see much of that in the demo but do wonder if upgrades to cars will be purely for boosting resource count, or if there will also be some weapon options that come into play down the rail.
The RTS portion of the game reminds me partially of Iron Harvest and the Company of Heroes series. Units have different classes, each with unique abilities. Riflemen can charge the enemy with their bayonets, machine gunners can set up a machine gun nest and take on incoming swarms of enemies, medics and scouts are also present, providing some additional support to your fighters. Missions are combat heavy, with an emphasis on taking cover to avoid enemy fire. There is a weightiness to these fights. Grenades obliterate soldier units. The few vehicle units I saw are a nightmare for your on-foot units. Bunching up and firing away isn’t going to cut it here, and that’s great. I had a few small gripes with some encounters, but those will hopefully be ironed out ahead of release.
The missions I played in the demo had a good amount of variety to them. In one village, I found myself rebuilding fences, fighting off wolves, and moving supplies all in support of the war ravaged locals. In another mission, my units snuck around, taking out the enemies silently, as they tried to gain control of a train station. Another mission had me going all in to destroy an enemy training camp. I didn’t find myself over relying on one unit over the other. I got a healthy mix of the units and got to play around with them in different settings.
Managing units between missions seems to be the meat and potatoes of the game. Units whose health gets too low and are not properly cared for gain an injured status and are confined to the train until they are healed by using a first aid kit on the train or visiting a doctor in a village. Healing in battle, while great for the short term, sadly does not carry over when the mission ends. Players can award honors to squad units following a mission’s completion. This gives additional XP to that unit and can lead to leveling units up faster. After leveling a unit up, players can assign a trait point and give that unit a new roll. New rolls can result in that unit gaining access to new weapons and new jobs on the train, making it even harder when you eventually lose that unit in battle or because of a resource shortage.
My time with the demo proves there is a strong foundation here. We’re only a few weeks out from having the full game in hand, but the gameplay loop of base management and RTS battles looks to deliver a deep experience with hours of gameplay. We’re standing in the station, waiting for the train and we won’t have to wait too long to see if this ride’s worth taking.
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