Few games throw you into the heart and horrors of war as Last Train Home does. While a fictionalized take on historical events, it deals with the bleak and desperate reality of soldiers frequently confronted with severe choices, where morality and survival end up as opposites. THQ Nordic’s upcoming game is a promising mix of real-time strategy and management simulator, with enough depth and narrative care to make it an engaging but brutal journey during World War 1.
Next Stop, War
Your armored train is the last resort for the Czechoslovak soldiers to return home, but the path is filled with danger and unexpected stops. Caught in the middle of a war between Russia’s Red Army and White Army, soldiers must engage in real-time missions where stealth and action collide, finding and managing the few resources they own to keep morale high. Each mission represents another step home, but a single mistake may end up killing part of your squad, knowing that soldiers level up and become more proficient at their specialization.
Our hands-on was a good way to see how immersive this journey could be, featuring a nice blend of Commandos and Men of War for the tactical missions. Speaking of immersive, the developers went as far as recording full voiced dialogue in Russian, Czech, and Slovak, still making it optional if you prefer to have all the voices in English, French or German.
Stepping into the battlefield is a matter of checking the surroundings with care and witnessing some of the darkness of war. Civilian bodies scattered around, buildings burned to the ground, a deafening silence, and the occasional troops that will pose a challenge, requiring consideration on the best way to approach them. You can go silently and eliminate them without alerting the surrounding soldiers, or draw your guns and charge blindly – the latter is a strategy that will quickly turn your train into a morgue, so it’s not really the recommended method in this game.
Soldiers come in different classes with unique skills, providing a diverse range of solutions to tackle each situation. The rifleman is your trusted choice to make a run for it and stab an enemy behind cover, while the scout is great to discover what kind of danger lurks in unexplored areas ahead. The medic heals your comrades, and the grenadier has the obvious role of throwing grenades to blow up with enemies and larger things such as military trucks. The more you learn about the specifics of each class, the better soldier synergy will be, resulting in smoother missions.
Moving carefully as to not alert the enemy side is crucial, with a dedicated silent mode for your squad to use. Threading slowly and whispering comments is a guarantee that you won’t be spotted so easily, and stealth attacks planned using the tactical view are the resort of the most skilled tacticians, pausing the action to plan the orders, such as noiselessly executing two soldiers in the blink of an eye.
It’s somewhat like the Commandos series, with an interesting balance between stealth and action, but always requiring thought and strategy. The battles are fierce and numbers are important, but you’ll always be outnumbered and strategy is crucial, especially when enemies are behind cover and it’s hard to hit them. You can order your rifleman to use the bayonet charge skill and take out these foes, but the game seems to enforce this tactic, as going around the obstacle and close to the enemy is more hit and miss than it should be, as if the shots were failing to register.
All Aboard the Fight Train
During the train travel, it’s up to you to manage everything related to your squad, from the soldiers to the workers who make everything go smoothly and repair train malfunctions. The UI feels daunting and takes some getting used to, even with the tutorial tips, as there is a lot of information to digest and too many actions to learn how to use, including upgrading attributes and selecting roles. Time passes in Last Train Home, day and night cycles force soldiers to rest, the different wagons have specific purposes such as healing soldiers, carrying resources, and so on.
Soldiers have several attributes that affect their performance both on the train and on the battlefield, along with traits that aren’t seen in games taking a lighter approach to human nature. Take this soldier who actively supports a strong government and hierarchy, with her choices able to change the path of narrative in some events. That’s a great thing about Last Train Home, how some of these persons have strong personalities and aren’t afraid to pitch in when a tough choice is ahead, but the ultimate decision is yours to make. Other soldiers come with traits that will mix up things a little, such as indifference about the death of a colleague, more talent to fish or collect herbs, or a higher chance of falling ill. There are quite a few interesting traits, some of their effects only plainly visible after a few hours of playing, their actual worth to be measured during the train journey.
Last Train Home is shaping up to be a clever genre-bending game, aimed at players who are willing to take on a challenge that isn’t light on brutality and broadly inspired by real events, even if there’s dramatization for the sake of videogame purposes. The sheer depth of the soldier management aspect is enough to keep you on your toes, even if the UI may seem overwhelming, but combining it with real-time strategy combat makes for an explosive journey that may be going places. Back home is the priority, but hopefully also into the hearts and minds of many strategy fans.
MP1st was given access to a preview build of Last Train Home for our hands-on session. Last Train Home launches in 2023 for PC.