The eerie, beating heart of my RailGod sits in the train’s second carriage, pulsing ominously. I feed it my fear – the pure essence of my hysteria, harvested from the core of my soul. It pulses faster, offering me a twisted new power in return for my sacrifice. Then, I do it all over again – plunging into maddening wastelands fraught with terrors in search of resources and, of course, food for the chugging locomotive that I’m symbiotically bound to. This is RailGods of Hysterra, an upcoming survival game from Troglobyte Games, and it’s absolutely glorious.
Described as a “co-op survival journey through a post-apocalyptic Lovecraftian world,” RailGods of Hysterra had me from the moment it was unveiled. Blending Diablo-style top-down combat with the crafting and base building from all the best survival games, it’s an eerie mashup of two of my favorite genres, all wrapped up in an Eldritch bow. For me, RailGods is the complete package and now, having taken it for a spin, I can confirm it has the makings of something special.
The highlight of RailGods of Hysterra is, of course, the RailGod itself. An octopus-like entity with a bulging yellow eye that’s somehow been grafted onto the front of a 1920s-style locomotive, the RailGod is your base of operations. You’ll build your settlement in its carriages, navigate the Dreamlands using its predetermined tracks, and synergize with it to upgrade your gear. You feed it with ‘mush’ and sacrifices, which, as you’ve likely worked out, is harvested by killing or trapping enemies on your travels. Placing said food on a platform in the engine room prompts a huge, tentacle-like tongue to appear, eliciting a series of contented chomps and an ‘it’s good.’ It’s vaguely disgusting and certainly disconcerting, but I love every minute of it.
You can start and stop the RailGod at any time as it trundles along three predetermined routes. Some stops have NPCs that can help upgrade your gear, while others have hidden dungeons and secret passageways that lead to better resources. Combat is top-down and clearly Diablo-inspired, with a series of abilities (Dark Gifts) at your disposal. I’m only armed with a basic axe, but thankfully my Eldritch Blast-style magic projectile does a lot of the work for me, and when enemies get close, I can seamlessly dodge out of the way. RailGod’s combat isn’t doing anything new, sure, but it’s fun nonetheless.
As you scour the plains for resources and battle the hordes, your madness level begins to increase. Similar to the likes of Amnesia or the ever-iconic Dredge, as the Eldritch tendrils of the Dreamlands begin to infiltrate your mind, you’ll begin to lose track of what’s in your inventory, with the item symbols being replaced by eyeballs, rendering that resource inaccessible until your madness level decreases. It’s a unique little twist that forces you to engage with and memorize your inventory, while simultaneously adding an extra layer of difficulty – if you can’t recognize your potatoes anymore, what are you going to eat? How are you going to tend your wounds if you can’t find your bandages?
Luckily, that madness doesn’t last forever. As you limp back to your trusty alien steamtrain, you’ll be able to empty your brain of paranoid thoughts using its heart. As mentioned, doing so earns you a Godkeeper skill. These are powerful, game-changing abilities that are integral to taking down your foes. In my short time with the game, I’m able to teleport around and assault my enemies with blasts of purple Lovecraftian magic, reminding me of either the Sorceress or Rogue archetypes from Diablo.
But, in order to continue upgrading your gear, you’ll need to spend some time building out your RailGod. You’ll build each carriage from the ground up, adding workbenches, stoves, and crafting tables as you would in other survival games. You can expand the train and add on even more carriages, allowing you to separate everything out – a must if you’re playing with friends.
Keeping in mind that this is a pre-alpha build, structures are pretty rudimentary at the moment, but their limited space (it is a carriage, after all) challenges you to think strategically instead of simply plonking items in corners and hoping for the best. While there’s nothing immediately groundbreaking in terms of build mechanics, I found myself taking a little more care when creating, as opposed to Palworld where I dropped things in random locations and hoped everything would fit.
While RailGods of Hysterra isn’t reinventing the survival crafting wheel in terms of mechanics and systems, what makes it unique is its commitment to its setting. The madness mechanic, the mobile base on a tentacled steam train, the gorgeous yet twisted New England setting – everything is a knowing tribute to H. P. Lovecraft’s work. Where survival crafters often rely upon Norse and fantasy folklore, Railgods is doing something quite new. It’s a carefully crafted world that I want to dive back into, and as the game progresses and Troglobytes build up its lore, I can’t wait to uncover just what happened to bring about Armageddon, and how we can banish the Old Ones for good.
Troglobyte Games has set the Railgods of Hysterra release date window for 2025, but you can sign up to playtest it now.