Tickets ready, weapons loaded, and drones standing by because Endless Rails has finally locked in its departure date.
Studio Monoblok has announced that its isometric bullet heaven roguelite is rolling onto Steam this September, sending players aboard an ever-growing train through a post-apocalyptic wasteland absolutely crawling with monsters. The destination? There really isn’t one. Your job is simply to keep moving for as long as you possibly can while everything outside does its best to bring the journey to a rather violent end.
There’s already been plenty of interest ahead of departure too. Endless Rails passed 6,000 Steam wishlists and 6,000 demo plays back in June, giving the small team plenty of passengers waiting to climb aboard when the full game arrives.
This Is Definitely Not a Relaxing Train Journey
Endless Rails puts you in charge of a train attempting to escape a wasteland overrun by bloodthirsty monsters. Fortunately, you’re not expected to lean out of the window and start shooting them yourself.
Your drones handle the actual firing automatically, leaving you to concentrate on keeping them alive, positioning your train, and making the decisions that will hopefully carry you to the next station. Journeys between stops are deliberately short, with each action-packed stretch lasting around 20 to 30 seconds. Survive, and you’ll pull into another station where it’s time to start tinkering with your train.
Coins earned along the way can be spent on new cars, weapons, drone slots, and buffs, gradually turning whatever you started with into something considerably more capable of dealing with the hordes outside.
Your Train Is Your Build
Adding another carriage isn’t simply about making your train longer.
Cars can be rearranged and merged together to increase their strength and unlock additional module slots, making the layout of your train an important part of each build. Throw different weapons, drone types, and upgrades into the mix and there should be plenty of opportunities to experiment with how your monster-killing locomotive comes together.
Exactly what you find changes the decisions you’ll make along the way, so the train that eventually carries you deep into the wasteland might look very different from the one that barely survived your previous attempt.
There’s permanent progression waiting between runs too. Resources you’ve earned can be invested into an upgrade tree, giving you a slightly better chance when it’s time to climb aboard and do everything all over again. Because eventually, something is going to stop that train.
How Far Can You Keep It Rolling?
There’s no final station waiting patiently at the end of the line. Studio Monoblok reckons reaching Station 20 already means you’re doing pretty well, but Endless Rails will happily let you continue beyond that point. Enemies keep coming, the challenge keeps increasing, and your increasingly ridiculous train keeps rolling until you simply can’t hold everything back anymore. Then it’s straight back to rebuilding, upgrading, and trying to make it just a little farther next time.
Players have already had an opportunity to see how that cycle works through the free Steam demo, which launched in June and remains available now. Feedback from those early players has also helped shape development, with Studio Monoblok previously highlighting more train modules, additional weapons, a revamped upgrade tree, extra enemies, bigger boss fights, and visual improvements among its priorities for the full release.
Next Stop: Launch Day
Endless Rails has a wonderfully simple idea at its heart. Build a train, surround it with increasingly ridiculous amounts of firepower, and see how long you can keep the whole thing moving. Add the short trips between stations, constant upgrades, permanent progression, and the temptation to squeeze just one more carriage into your build, and it’s easy to see where that familiar roguelite urge to try again could come from.
Just don’t bother asking where the train terminates, it’s called Endless Rails for a reason.