RAILROAD CORPORATION Steam Preview

Railroad Corporation, developed by Corbie Games and published by Iceberg Interactive for PC via Steam Early Access, is a pretty good game. Is it a finished game? No, but it’s still pretty good. Railroad Corporation has a lot of potential to be something really cool, but right now it’s a handful of missions and a sandbox.

            When I first picked up this game I found it to be kind of a pain. Now I’m not the most avid virtual railroad management connoisseur, but it took me a good chunk of time to figure out the tutorial. In hindsight, I can see that the basic mechanics of the game are very simple and easy to understand, but during the tutorial it seemed like I would never get past the starting area. I don’t know why I had such a hard time at first, I could give the game the benefit of the doubt and say that I was just being a dumb idiot, or I could say that the UI is mediocre. This brings me to my first point.

The UI is mediocre. It just is not very good. I’m sure if someone invested a lot of their time into this game than maybe they would get used to it, but right off the bat the UI is bad. It just doesn’t feel good, it’s not intuitive and I spent a good chunk of my time trying to figure out how to open the correct tab. The railroad construction tab isn’t that bad, but everything else on the left side of the screen is a chore to work through.

            From a style standpoint, it’s okay. I like the 19^th century theme of it, and the graphics aren’t terrible. My main gripe with the game is that I feel like it only has one 30 second music track. I might be exaggerating, but Railroad Corporation could definitely use some more music.

            Like the music, the general problem with Railroad Corporation is that it needs more. It only has like six missions, and they’re relatively short, too. Are they bad missions? No, not at all. They’re pretty fun missions, and they’re challenging, too, but there just aren’t that many of them. The sandbox mode helps add some replay-ability to the game, and there is a multiplayer mode which is a nice feature, but what this game really needs is more stuff to do.

I’ve been dogging Railroad Corporation a little hard, but despite everything I’ve just said, there are a lot of cool mechanics packed into this game. Railroad Corporation isn’t just a train simulator, it’s almost like a business tycoon simulator. You’re not just worrying about which trains go where, you’re worrying about what goods you can move from town to town. You’re not just managing trains, you are kind of managing businesses too. The player can buy a farm and grow cotton on it, then the player can build a railroad from their farm and connect it to a textile factory. The player can either buy the textile factory or have the factory buy the cotton off the player, then the player can move the textiles to a city that has a clothing factory and after that the player isn’t just managing trains, they’re managing clothing production.

            There are also a number of different tabs the player can use to enhance their experience. From diplomacy to research and more, the player can lobby local towns for more lenient taxes or research bigger and better trains. For a game that doesn’t have that much to do, there is a lot to do.

            So, Railroad Corporation isn’t perfect, and the game isn’t nearly finished, but it does have potential. Sandbox mode is worth messing around with, and the missions offer a decent challenge.

Check Out the Railroad Corporation Steam Early Access Trailer:

Railroad Corporation is available for PC via Steam Early Access.