In a time where many people are trapped indoors for extended periods and may find themselves with extra time on their hands, there are a ton of co-op video games available to play, and they’re more popular than ever. Unrailed is one such game, and its charming graphics and simple-yet-fun mechanics can keep players entertained as they try to build and maintain a train line with their friends.
While many gamers are more familiar with realistic-looking, player-squishing trains like in Call of Duty: Warzone, the trains in Unrailed are colorful and blocky, and while they may catch on fire, they’re not creating any intense situations. Players work together to build a railroad track – a task they can accomplish with strangers online or locally with friends.
Unrailed entered Early Access last year, and it immediately appealed to fans of games like Overcooked, where players combine their skills to accomplish simple tasks in bright, cheerful surroundings. The game ends if the train runs off the track, and a game can technically go on forever, because of procedurally-generated worlds that make each playthrough unique. Players can also select challenges that limit them to a goal like a certain number of tracks. Eventually, someone makes the wrong move or times something wrong, and it’s game over, but then a group can just start up another game.
The mechanics for this endless co-op game aren’t immediately intuitive, and people accustomed to selecting from the menu using arrows on the keyboard or clicking with the mouse may be frustrated to make their avatar run back and forth over different buttons. This choice clearly plays into the game’s conceit, which is that manipulating one’s little icon back and forth quickly and accomplishing tasks is the only way to get far in the game. That, and communicating with the fellow players, which is done by selecting from an emoji wheel (unless one happens to be playing locally or over a Zoom call, of course).
Once the player gets used to how to maneuver their character, though, it’s pretty simple to get tasks done. This is very much an “easy to learn, hard to master” sort of game. There are a few basic tasks that players have to complete: using pickaxes and axes to chop stone and wood, putting those resources into a special cart to get a train track, racing to the front of the train to lay the track, laying bridges over water, and filling buckets to put out fires on the train when it gets overheated.
It all sounds simple for a video game, but it can be complicated if one doesn’t communicate well with their team, or when multiple obstacles are springing up and the players have to juggle multiple plates. It’s not an ambitious game, and it can easily become repetitive, but simple co-ops like Among Us are getting very popular recently, maybe because it’s so deceptively simple, so experienced players can form in-depth strategies that make the game more enjoyable. The connection element is no doubt huge, and it makes sense that Daedaelic Entertainment would be capitalizing on the social-connectivity game craze right now.
The game’s soundtrack is very well-suited for it, and is relaxing enough to get the player into a focused zone when they’re playing the game. It’s adventurous, bouncy, and makes one think of exploring fields in Zelda or earlier routes in Pokemon, where there aren’t terrifying monsters appearing to attack quite yet, but the game wants the player feeling curious and involved. There are also some funky elements like boinging guitar strings that remind the player they’re supposed to be in a fun, silly game.
Unrailed‘s art is reminiscent of games like Crossy Road or the blocky textures of Minecraft, which are simple yet visually appealing. It’s very clear what is a rock vs a pile of wood and what’s a pickaxe vs a regular axe, even with the simplified designs. The colorful blocks also play a big part in making the procedurally generated surroundings effective, because even lower-tier machines can handle them. They’re literally like building blocks that slowly create a more complex and detailed map, dominated by a train track running through and snaking around obstacles and over rivers.
While Unrailed isn’t high-stakes or high-intensity, it can still be a very frustrating game for people who aren’t a fan of the roguelike game genre, which is notorious for its tendency to force players to start over from the beginning if they fail a level or task. Many people like being able to go back to a save point and learn from their mistakes to accomplish the next part of a task, and it can be a major disappointment to put in a lot of time on a train track only to have that all erased if the train runs into something, Snake-style.
Overall, this is a fun game to pull out if someone wants to have a cooperative challenge with some friends or connect with strangers online, although as with most co-ops, playing with friends is often more rewarding. Players can play with a bot in single-player, so if no friends or online connection is handy, it’s still enjoyable. People can choose to communicate via emoji or over voice chat, but either way, they should be prepared to crash a lot of trains in the game before they can perfect cooperative railroad building.
Unrailed is available now in Early Access for Linux, macOS, and Linux, and the full game will release September 23. Game Rant was provided with a PC code for this review.
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