Trains! Smooth running Diesel freight, loud, sexy locomotives, sleek silver subways and more. Who doesn’t love trains!
Trains are an awesome mode of transport, and have quite the history behind them. And of course, Tycoon games being what they are, trains are not exempt from their all-encompassing reach. So, Railway Empire then. I being a train nerd, Love this game. Even if it isn’t as involving as other games. It is a tycoon game of course, so there isn’t much to do by standard. And that’s fine, if I wanted a super realistic, super involved train game, I’d pick up one of those train sim games.
So what’s so fun abut Railway Empire? Well, in a word, creating the craziest railway system imaginable. It’s no Sim city, but you can still make some pretty janky and hilarious rail lines. Tycoon games are known for being one of two things, simple and relaxing, or broken and hilarious. Railway Empire falls into the former category.
The main ‘story’ of the game involves about 36 scenarios, each with a checklist of things to accomplish and various competitors. Each scenario gets progressively more difficult as you go, and the AI competition, more hungry. You pick one of six avatars to play as, each with bonuses, debilitations and preferences between freight or passenger cargo. Outside of that, there are basically no rules. And the game goes surprisingly in depth with the selection of locomotives you can buy.
The attention to detail of the locomotives is impressive. And I will never tire of hearing my Berkshire 2-8-4 steaming along the mess of a rail system I’d created. Whilst I am not 100% sure whether or not the names of the trains are representative of their real life counterparts, but then again, I’m not an expert, so I’ll take it.
Another thing I find infatuating fun is the rails themselves. You can put down a variety of stations, and link them all up with any crazy system you want. Huge inclines, steep drops, straight lines, bridges tunnels you can do it all. Even the signalling systems. You can go nuts, creating a huge signalling terminal to make everything super-efficient, if your one of those OCD nutters like me.
Gameplay boils down to putting down stations to link cities and industries, to create a thriving supply line that earns you those sweet, sweet stacks of green. You can by industries, to make things more lucrative, or just link tones of cities together and horde the market, all that Tycoon game shady business fun. Cities will grow as your industries rise and become more in demand, resulting in more passengers and so forth and so forth, snowball in effect.
Apart from that, there isn’t much to say about it, it’s a simple tycoon game after all. It’s relaxing, and simplistic. The sorta game to sit back and just have on in the back ground while you work on something else. It can and does pretty much play itself.
I will say it is probably a game best played on PC, as the controller does make the game feel a tad sluggish when trying to pain tracks and twitchy when trying to place down buildings or signals. And sure, it’s a tad pricy in my mind for a game as simple as this. With an additional hundred dollars’ worth of DLC, adding in new maps from Germany to Brazil, with new trade goods and locomotives, historic to the region and era.
So, all that in mind, it’s an ok game. Train nerds probably won’t like it, but people who like background noise will find it quite calming. Developed by Kalypso Media and Gaming Mind Studios, Published by the same, and released in 2018. Railway Empire, in summary, is a simple train Tycoon, with good attention to detail in its locomotives, that train lovers will enjoy. However it does have its gripes but god I want to get my hands on a Shay 0-4-0 In real life. And thus…. I give Railway Empire a solid