[Review] Unrailed! - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: Indoor Astronaut
Published By: Daedalic Entertainment
Categories: Multiplayer, Train Building, Co-Op
Release Date: 09.23.20

Unrailed isn’t quite the deepest game, but I found myself having difficulty placing it down. Not once at any time that I failed in the game, was it frustrating, if anything it was funny to me. Despite the game always keeping you on your toes, it’s not really a stressful game.

You build train tracks. In order to do that, you chop down tree and mine iron. Ok, the game isn’t that shallow, but this is the meat of your gameplay. The goal is to get to the next station without your train crashing by running out of tracks to run on. You’ll need to make sure you consistently have enough materials to keep building train-tracks, track your cooling system on the train as to not have your train just catch on fire and burn away, keep an eye on material thieves and livestock, and collecting these golden bolts, being out of the way. This might sound overwhelming, but it never really feels as much, especially when you plan ahead or when you upgrade your train. Between stages, you’re given the option to upgrade or even add on to your train with the golden bolts you both find and earn. This ranges from keeping your train’s cooling system last longer before refills, making crafting for tracks faster, holding more materials, to additions like having a car you can just walk through, which can be incredibly helpful in narrow areas, a car that can let you stop the train when needed, and even a car that can use the cows you find as energy. If you save enough bolts, you can even upgrade the engine, which no only speeds up your train, but allows for more cars to be added.

Of course, this was all me playing solo. The real fun comes from the game’s multiplayer, which is how the developers truly intend for you to play. While in solo, you have a bot who takes your orders and is rather competent at doing so, you’ll have to pray you playing with people who know what they’re doing and aren’t just there to goof off. This makes a game that is rather simple and even relaxing at times alone, downright chaotic online. I was enjoying myself offline, but online it’s at another level. And even with the mess that comes up with how online games are, I still was never getting frustrated.

The game uses voxel graphics, which seem to be popular with indie games lately that want to look retro, but still have 3D graphics. If done right, it’s charming, and Unrailed does pull it off. Throughout playing you’ll unlock more skins to use, I however stuck to the penguin skin, which was unlocked by default. The large number of skins is nice, especially online to make sure there’s no mixing up who’s who. The game does have a weather and night I wasn’t really finding anything audio wise too memorable in the game outside of the music that plays in between stages, which is an oddly catchy elevator tune.

Unrailed is the kind of game that’s great for a small party or a fun Discord weekend get together. But if that’s not in the cards, it’s really fun and incredibly replayable solo too, which most multiplayer focused games struggle at.