Last Train Home - survival strategy game about Czechoslovak soldiers escaping post-WW1 Russia on an armored train

[lightbane]

The narrative makes it sound like this train ride is pure suffering, but it does not match my experience at all. These guys have it pretty damn comfy if I say so myself.

Quite realistic then.

 

[Alienman]

Finished it. Pretty good, but a bit too easy. I wrote a review, which you can read here, or down below, if interested.

Spoiler

The Christmas game is here, if you don’t mind the blood, the civilian casualties, and the general horrors of war. Beyond that, it has snow and that is good enough for me! Last Train Home is somewhat of an X-com title, in that you control a “base”, build it up, and equip your men in wait for harder tasks – with the mix of Men of War inspired real-time combat when it comes to the fighting. Does it work, and is it fun? Well, let’s get into that, but first a bit about the story.

To go west, you have to go east
Last Train Home is based on historical events during the Russian Revolution that happened in 1917. You play as a Czechoslovakian expeditionary force, with you being trapped in the wrong part of the country when this little shindig goes down. That means you will have to take the long way around, as in going east to go west – through the Siberian cold all the way to Vladivostok to finally board a ship home. You will be doing this on a train, that will act as your base that you can upgrade however you see fit.

The game starts with you rather well-equipped. You even have an artillery attachment to the train for blowing up pesky revolutionaries. But as everything goes, this is just an illusion of safety and soon thereafter your little military orient express is destroyed. This starts the real game, with you and your crew on the downturn with a shabby rat-infested commuter train as a replacement. During this journey, you will be known as “the commander”, with the real protagonist (as I see it) Captain Langer giving you advice and narrating the journey.

During the perilous voyage through Russia, there are a lot of decisions to make, some that affect the direct storyline, but most of the choices seem reflected in the resources you get, and how low or high the morale will be. The presentation has live-action cutscenes with a voiced narration, and the small story segments you discover come along nicely and are a joy to follow. However, the tone is dreary regardless of how well you do, which sadly affects the immersion a bit. For example, I never had any real trouble with food, and not many soldiers were lost to war or other things, but Langer wouldn’t stop going on how everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, sucks and that they were absolutely zero chance that we would make it out of Russia alive. While these cutscenes would make sense if it was a bad run, I just wanted to slap him and tell him to get it together for the sake of the men.

Survival is number one
As not entirely unexpected, survival is one of the main ingredients of the gameplay. On the strategic map where you travel, you also have to make decisions about what places to visit, bases to attack, and who and what to trade with. This you do through creating different squads that you send out. However, the missions that do not involve the Men of War-style combat will tire your men. Their personalities and perks will also affect the outcomes of the places to visit. A good idea is to send people with the burglary perk to ransack abandoned houses, as they will find more stuff compared to others. All this provides a nice balancing act to consider because if you push your men too hard, it might have serious consequences down the line, such as death and mutiny.

Scavenging the lands while traveling is your main way to get resources, and you need much more than just food. You need cloth, coal, wood, metal, weapons, and ammo too. There are also consumables to find, like medkits that heal wounds, and pick-me-up pills that remove the need to sleep. But the primary resources are to upgrade your different railroad cars. Everything from increasing coziness (increase health and morale regain), to expanding the room for more bodies and loot. There will never be enough resources for everything, so you will have to make priorities. Another important danger here is the environment. You see when the game starts, the weather is fine and warm, but the further you go on your journey, the colder it gets, and when you reach Siberia, the deadly cold snakes into every crevice and zaps the strength quickly from even the strongest of men. It’s very important to build up resistance to the cold already from the start not to be caught with the pants down when the freezing evil itself hits.

Now, improving the railroad cars are not instantaneous, you need men with engineering skill, and above all: time. Time might not be in your favor always, as some missions will be time-based. After a while, the Reds will actively pursue you, which is represented in a percentage meter. Every time you stop, for whatever reason, this will go up, making the Reds come closer. However, when you move, this will go down, so it’s another interesting mechanic to contemplate. The wounded in the railroad medical car just have to suck it up will and spend another night in -20°, because crazy Ivan is right on our heels!

X-com train
The railroad cars come in a few different flavors, and so do the locomotives. You have the infantry railroad cars where your men rest and recover. The medical wagon for wounded and hospital staff. There are also cars for making food, building ammo, stashing artillery pieces, and for researching stuff, like better winter jackets. All these railroad cars are upgraded in various ways, and to get these cars beyond the loot wagon and three cars for your men, you will have to buy them, and they are very expensive. I managed to get every car except the artillery addition since it was just out of reach for my budget, and I didn’t see much of a use for it. There are a few different locomotives also, some faster, some stronger, and these can be upgraded too – for example, to use less coal or made stronger to be able to tow more railroad cars.

One main difference here from X-com games (since I keep comparing it to X-com) is that you can’t recruit any new men. You do get new soldiers, but they are mostly part of scripted events. This means that you have to be careful on missions, and make sure the men are as happy as possible not to desert. They all come with different background stories, individual pictures, and perks, which makes them stand out from each other. They are also good at different stuff, and while they come with one (or more) specialization, you can always give them more jobs – and these jobs are all based on stats, like charisma, dexterity, and intelligence. To be honest, I didn’t notice too much difference in these stats while in combat since it’s hectic enough, but for the optimizer out there there is a lot to think about when setting up your work schedule and combat units.

All in all, it’s very detailed, and a lot to dive into, if you feel like it. While I did some diving myself, I didn’t go full autism mode, and I made it through pretty okay. With that I mean, it doesn’t seem to be required to finish the game on the difficulty setting “commander”, which is the recommended one to play.

The shooting & blasting
When you are not surviving the Russian wilderness, you will be fighting wild Russians on the tactical combat maps. These scenarios remind me of the Men of War games (as mentioned), and even shares similar design. It’s an RTS experience with cover mechanics at its heart. There is also rudimentary stealth. Every enemy soldier that can’t see you directly, can be sneaked up to and be bonked on the head. While the stealth works, after a while I started to ignore this aspect, even when the missions themselves wanted me to remain hidden.

The reason for this is that I found the combat in general way too easy, mostly because of how effortless it is to lure the enemy into traps. When you are sitting behind a “thick” cover, you are basically immortal except for explosives. The enemy tends to investigate everything and leave cover to do so. One easy trick is just to take one man up to the enemy lines, have them see you, and then lure them into your prepared and entrenched men. This works for every enemy unit, man and vehicle alike, except the static ones like the machinegunner emplacements. Why suicide or stealth around when you can just do this? The men I lost during the playthrough were all to heavier guns, as the enemy infantry by themselves didn’t provide much of a challenge. However, the combat isn’t bad at all, even if it might sound like it. I had a lot of fun, it was unfortunately just too easy, and one simple solution to this AI problem is to have some men never move out of their heavy cover.

Your men are separated into a few different classes like the rifleman and medic. There are more classes of course, and every class uses their own kind of weapon. The medic uses pistols, while the rifleman uses rifles. These weapons come with upgrades too, even if they are rare, or expensive to buy, but they are definitely worth it. Especially the better machine guns, which turn the machinegun class from a killer to a destroyer of armies. When battling the Russians you can also steal machinegun trucks and the rare tank. In the hands of the player, these machines are pure beasts. Sadly, they don’t remain from battle to battle, as they are abandoned when the mission ends, but I can see why.

When your men get better, they unlock new perks, and what is interesting here is if they run two or more classes, you can mix and max perks from the different them. I can see the potential for a lot of cool builds here, even if I didn’t take it very far. But matching anything with the grenadier class unlocks the ability to throw grenades. Not a bad deal I would say, especially if you want to make your destroyer of worlds machine gunner even more effective by having him be able to take out tanks too.

I do have one recommendation for the combat to make it a bit more challenging. Play it as a self-imposed ironman run, and take the casualties where you get them, if it isn’t too much bullshit involved. Now, you can’t get more men at will, as mentioned earlier, but the game is very liberal with handing them out. I couldn’t even fit them all, and I had to turn people away – bad vibes man, leaving them out to die there in the snowy hellscape.

Visual & sound

One of the best things about Last Train Home is the presentation and the visual style. When you complete a chapter, and when entering a new one you get live-action scenes that are just splendidly done. They feel authentic, and in general increase the feel of the game – transporting you to the era in which the game takes place. Outside of that, the strategic map looks great, and I love all the detail when you zoom into your train. Every kind of upgrade you do is represented visually too. You will see men sleeping, entertaining themselves, medical staff healing people, the train driver navigating the train, and so on.

It’s all very pleasant to watch – to see the progression taking hold of your little base on metal wheels. When it comes to combat, it looks nice too. The environment looks phenomenal, especially the snowy forested landscapes. All weapons have their own models too, which makes the attention to detail very impressive. Another thing that cements the fact that this is a good-looking game, is the scaling of things. Things just look right. The cities are huge for example, which beyond some gameplay elements has a minimum of abstractions when it comes to the environment.

The sound is excellent too, from the machine guns popping off to the voice acting. There is an option to have the narrator and the men speak natively, but I found that I missed a lot of the story by doing so. Much of the dialogue happens during the fighting phases and my mind isn’t quick enough to both read and fight the Russians at the same time. Another nice feature is the music. I can’t say I remember all of the songs, but some of the more melancholic tunes sure are top-notch.



Conclusion
Last Train Home is very enjoyable with a lot of mechanics and gameplay that speaks to me on a deep gaming level – maybe not surprising considering I love X-com-style games. However, what drags it down a bit is the general easiness of the combat, which extends to making the overall game pretty simple to complete. Setbacks will take resources from you, but winning the combat scenarios makes the train ride almost become a joyous thing instead of the dangerous journey that the narration implies. There are custom settings to make it harder, but I think one fundamental problem lies in that the AI is just way too eager to leave the safety of their trenches. I would also love an official ironman mode, so the temptation of reloading is removed. Maybe this will be fixed, or maybe it will not – who knows, but as it is now, you should know that the game unfortunately is not tough enough for something that involves surviving in perilous lands on meager resources.

Regardless, it’s a very nice title, and everything else stands out for the better. It’s just fun to play when it comes down to it. I already feel it luring me in for a second go and this time I might make some custom changes to make it harder, even if I prefer set difficulty settings. I highly recommend the game, since it’s clear the game is a passion of love, and those should be rewarded.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Atlet]

Finished it. Pretty good, but a bit too easy. I wrote a review, which you can read here, or down below, if interested.

Spoiler

The Christmas game is here, if you don’t mind the blood, the civilian casualties, and the general horrors of war. Beyond that, it has snow and that is good enough for me! Last Train Home is somewhat of an X-com title, in that you control a “base”, build it up, and equip your men in wait for harder tasks – with the mix of Men of War inspired real-time combat when it comes to the fighting. Does it work, and is it fun? Well, let’s get into that, but first a bit about the story.

To go west, you have to go east
Last Train Home is based on historical events during the Russian Revolution that happened in 1917. You play as a Czechoslovakian expeditionary force, with you being trapped in the wrong part of the country when this little shindig goes down. That means you will have to take the long way around, as in going east to go west – through the Siberian cold all the way to Vladivostok to finally board a ship home. You will be doing this on a train, that will act as your base that you can upgrade however you see fit.

The game starts with you rather well-equipped. You even have an artillery attachment to the train for blowing up pesky revolutionaries. But as everything goes, this is just an illusion of safety and soon thereafter your little military orient express is destroyed. This starts the real game, with you and your crew on the downturn with a shabby rat-infested commuter train as a replacement. During this journey, you will be known as “the commander”, with the real protagonist (as I see it) Captain Langer giving you advice and narrating the journey.

During the perilous voyage through Russia, there are a lot of decisions to make, some that affect the direct storyline, but most of the choices seem reflected in the resources you get, and how low or high the morale will be. The presentation has live-action cutscenes with a voiced narration, and the small story segments you discover come along nicely and are a joy to follow. However, the tone is dreary regardless of how well you do, which sadly affects the immersion a bit. For example, I never had any real trouble with food, and not many soldiers were lost to war or other things, but Langer wouldn’t stop going on how everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, sucks and that they were absolutely zero chance that we would make it out of Russia alive. While these cutscenes would make sense if it was a bad run, I just wanted to slap him and tell him to get it together for the sake of the men.

Survival is number one
As not entirely unexpected, survival is one of the main ingredients of the gameplay. On the strategic map where you travel, you also have to make decisions about what places to visit, bases to attack, and who and what to trade with. This you do through creating different squads that you send out. However, the missions that do not involve the Men of War-style combat will tire your men. Their personalities and perks will also affect the outcomes of the places to visit. A good idea is to send people with the burglary perk to ransack abandoned houses, as they will find more stuff compared to others. All this provides a nice balancing act to consider because if you push your men too hard, it might have serious consequences down the line, such as death and mutiny.

Scavenging the lands while traveling is your main way to get resources, and you need much more than just food. You need cloth, coal, wood, metal, weapons, and ammo too. There are also consumables to find, like medkits that heal wounds, and pick-me-up pills that remove the need to sleep. But the primary resources are to upgrade your different railroad cars. Everything from increasing coziness (increase health and morale regain), to expanding the room for more bodies and loot. There will never be enough resources for everything, so you will have to make priorities. Another important danger here is the environment. You see when the game starts, the weather is fine and warm, but the further you go on your journey, the colder it gets, and when you reach Siberia, the deadly cold snakes into every crevice and zaps the strength quickly from even the strongest of men. It’s very important to build up resistance to the cold already from the start not to be caught with the pants down when the freezing evil itself hits.

Now, improving the railroad cars are not instantaneous, you need men with engineering skill, and above all: time. Time might not be in your favor always, as some missions will be time-based. After a while, the Reds will actively pursue you, which is represented in a percentage meter. Every time you stop, for whatever reason, this will go up, making the Reds come closer. However, when you move, this will go down, so it’s another interesting mechanic to contemplate. The wounded in the railroad medical car just have to suck it up will and spend another night in -20°, because crazy Ivan is right on our heels!

X-com train
The railroad cars come in a few different flavors, and so do the locomotives. You have the infantry railroad cars where your men rest and recover. The medical wagon for wounded and hospital staff. There are also cars for making food, building ammo, stashing artillery pieces, and for researching stuff, like better winter jackets. All these railroad cars are upgraded in various ways, and to get these cars beyond the loot wagon and three cars for your men, you will have to buy them, and they are very expensive. I managed to get every car except the artillery addition since it was just out of reach for my budget, and I didn’t see much of a use for it. There are a few different locomotives also, some faster, some stronger, and these can be upgraded too – for example, to use less coal or made stronger to be able to tow more railroad cars.

One main difference here from X-com games (since I keep comparing it to X-com) is that you can’t recruit any new men. You do get new soldiers, but they are mostly part of scripted events. This means that you have to be careful on missions, and make sure the men are as happy as possible not to desert. They all come with different background stories, individual pictures, and perks, which makes them stand out from each other. They are also good at different stuff, and while they come with one (or more) specialization, you can always give them more jobs – and these jobs are all based on stats, like charisma, dexterity, and intelligence. To be honest, I didn’t notice too much difference in these stats while in combat since it’s hectic enough, but for the optimizer out there there is a lot to think about when setting up your work schedule and combat units.

All in all, it’s very detailed, and a lot to dive into, if you feel like it. While I did some diving myself, I didn’t go full autism mode, and I made it through pretty okay. With that I mean, it doesn’t seem to be required to finish the game on the difficulty setting “commander”, which is the recommended one to play.

The shooting & blasting
When you are not surviving the Russian wilderness, you will be fighting wild Russians on the tactical combat maps. These scenarios remind me of the Men of War games (as mentioned), and even shares similar design. It’s an RTS experience with cover mechanics at its heart. There is also rudimentary stealth. Every enemy soldier that can’t see you directly, can be sneaked up to and be bonked on the head. While the stealth works, after a while I started to ignore this aspect, even when the missions themselves wanted me to remain hidden.

The reason for this is that I found the combat in general way too easy, mostly because of how effortless it is to lure the enemy into traps. When you are sitting behind a “thick” cover, you are basically immortal except for explosives. The enemy tends to investigate everything and leave cover to do so. One easy trick is just to take one man up to the enemy lines, have them see you, and then lure them into your prepared and entrenched men. This works for every enemy unit, man and vehicle alike, except the static ones like the machinegunner emplacements. Why suicide or stealth around when you can just do this? The men I lost during the playthrough were all to heavier guns, as the enemy infantry by themselves didn’t provide much of a challenge. However, the combat isn’t bad at all, even if it might sound like it. I had a lot of fun, it was unfortunately just too easy, and one simple solution to this AI problem is to have some men never move out of their heavy cover.

Your men are separated into a few different classes like the rifleman and medic. There are more classes of course, and every class uses their own kind of weapon. The medic uses pistols, while the rifleman uses rifles. These weapons come with upgrades too, even if they are rare, or expensive to buy, but they are definitely worth it. Especially the better machine guns, which turn the machinegun class from a killer to a destroyer of armies. When battling the Russians you can also steal machinegun trucks and the rare tank. In the hands of the player, these machines are pure beasts. Sadly, they don’t remain from battle to battle, as they are abandoned when the mission ends, but I can see why.

When your men get better, they unlock new perks, and what is interesting here is if they run two or more classes, you can mix and max perks from the different them. I can see the potential for a lot of cool builds here, even if I didn’t take it very far. But matching anything with the grenadier class unlocks the ability to throw grenades. Not a bad deal I would say, especially if you want to make your destroyer of worlds machine gunner even more effective by having him be able to take out tanks too.

I do have one recommendation for the combat to make it a bit more challenging. Play it as a self-imposed ironman run, and take the casualties where you get them, if it isn’t too much bullshit involved. Now, you can’t get more men at will, as mentioned earlier, but the game is very liberal with handing them out. I couldn’t even fit them all, and I had to turn people away – bad vibes man, leaving them out to die there in the snowy hellscape.

Visual & sound

One of the best things about Last Train Home is the presentation and the visual style. When you complete a chapter, and when entering a new one you get live-action scenes that are just splendidly done. They feel authentic, and in general increase the feel of the game – transporting you to the era in which the game takes place. Outside of that, the strategic map looks great, and I love all the detail when you zoom into your train. Every kind of upgrade you do is represented visually too. You will see men sleeping, entertaining themselves, medical staff healing people, the train driver navigating the train, and so on.

It’s all very pleasant to watch – to see the progression taking hold of your little base on metal wheels. When it comes to combat, it looks nice too. The environment looks phenomenal, especially the snowy forested landscapes. All weapons have their own models too, which makes the attention to detail very impressive. Another thing that cements the fact that this is a good-looking game, is the scaling of things. Things just look right. The cities are huge for example, which beyond some gameplay elements has a minimum of abstractions when it comes to the environment.

The sound is excellent too, from the machine guns popping off to the voice acting. There is an option to have the narrator and the men speak natively, but I found that I missed a lot of the story by doing so. Much of the dialogue happens during the fighting phases and my mind isn’t quick enough to both read and fight the Russians at the same time. Another nice feature is the music. I can’t say I remember all of the songs, but some of the more melancholic tunes sure are top-notch.



Conclusion
Last Train Home is very enjoyable with a lot of mechanics and gameplay that speaks to me on a deep gaming level – maybe not surprising considering I love X-com-style games. However, what drags it down a bit is the general easiness of the combat, which extends to making the overall game pretty simple to complete. Setbacks will take resources from you, but winning the combat scenarios makes the train ride almost become a joyous thing instead of the dangerous journey that the narration implies. There are custom settings to make it harder, but I think one fundamental problem lies in that the AI is just way too eager to leave the safety of their trenches. I would also love an official ironman mode, so the temptation of reloading is removed. Maybe this will be fixed, or maybe it will not – who knows, but as it is now, you should know that the game unfortunately is not tough enough for something that involves surviving in perilous lands on meager resources.

Regardless, it’s a very nice title, and everything else stands out for the better. It’s just fun to play when it comes down to it. I already feel it luring me in for a second go and this time I might make some custom changes to make it harder, even if I prefer set difficulty settings. I highly recommend the game, since it’s clear the game is a passion of love, and those should be rewarded.

Thanks for reading.

I didn't understand why did you compare this title to X-com-style games, since it is RTS. You mentioned that we can't recruit new characters (which is a strategic feature), but I would like to read more about the combat mechanics and tactical stuff.

Besides, it's a shame that the game is as easy as you wrote. Enemies AI being dumb and how OP stealth is can be a serious turn-off in tacticool games.

Is the game bug-free, though?

 

[Alienman]

X-com, as in base building, research, and the equipping of men. Everything base like goes into the X-com book The RTS part I compare to Men of War.
About combat mechanics, there isn't that much more to say. There is some micro, but mostly it's fairly standard RTS stuff with you being able to put your men in cover that lowers the chance of getting hit. When your men get shot, you have a few seconds to save them from their downed state. But they will retain that wound on the strategic map, which needs to be healed. There is no base building while on missions, and the maximum squad to bring on missions is 10 men I believe.

I had no bugs, but I read there are some on the forum depending on certain stuff, which I sadly can't remember.

 

[Alienman]

Forgot one important part actually. There is an active pause thing too. So you can pause and give orders, very convenient. So you can micro through that.

 

[Solfear]

Hey Alienman, good test.
I am currently playing the game, I am early on, ironman way. I want an experience as hard as possible.
Do you think it would be make the game far harder to enable the option for instant death when 0 hp?

 

[Alienman]

That should make the game much harder yes. Especially if you run into static machineguns

 

[Solfear]

I will do that then.
Any other option to enable or deactivate to make it even harder?

 

[Alienman]

Probably the resource gain, or whatever it is called. Resource used or something? But that all depends on how well you do on missions. If you get brutilized the journey might be over real quick, as you won't have any dudes to send out to scavenge.

 

[RolePlayer]

Anybody got any feedback for the graphic whores out there?

 

[Cyberarmy]

Anybody got any feedback for the graphic whores out there?

This is not the game for you? I mean it looks aestheticly pleasing but graphics are OK at best, techically.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[cvv]

Playing this, about 30 hours in, so far it's a lot of fun but I have a few complaints. Unlike Alienman I didn't find the game too easy, at least the tactic of luring enemy into your entrenched positions doesn't always work, they have artillery, armored cars, tanks, fast bayonet chargers and grenadiers that will smoke you out of your precious cover in no time. Plus high cover isn't always available or is inconveniently placed and enemies can swarm you fast. I found there are quite a few cases stealth is preferable, especially mid to late game.

And that's my biggest complaint - stealth in this game is just frustrating. There are a lot of QoLs from dedicated stealth games (think Commandos) missing that makes the whole thing feel weird and unwieldy. Plus one small mistake and the enemy will swarm you. And then loading takes 20 seconds. Then again if a well planned, multi-men stealth killing maneuver works out it's a joy.

Apart from this the game is grate. A unique mix of This War of Mine, Frostpunk, Monster Train and Commandos in one package that somehow works like well-oiled locomotive.

Plus the historical setting is interesting and fresh and you can kill commies. Lots and lots of commies. Solid 8,5/10.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I had tried the demo when it came out and could not reach a final conclusion.

The demo had some things that I really like: The setting, visuals and the general idea are exactly down my alley. Running a train through a sequence of levels and gradually upgrading it would open up fantastic gameplay if it is just done right. The railway aspect would even work with a linear or simple branched story. Unlike games where you cannot leave the road that the game follows, railways just do have that characteristics.

Don't think it was done completely horribly but it also didnt grab me yet. Not having turn based combat and deeper understanding of JA2 is a big miss.

And nowadays I only invest times into games that I really want to play so I'll probably put it on a list of games that I might get on sale when the company folds in about 2 years and they sell it for under 10$. Those East European developers have no staying power so there is no point in trying to "support" them eithe. Their games are always first rate second rate copies of really good games, so they should never cost no more than 10$ either.

But such games are great when I'm bored, like during the lockdowns. Then it's great to have a list of games prepared that you can buy and spend a bit of time on. Like food that doesn't have particular good taste, but sates your hunger. Like quality fastfood even.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

Discover the untold tales of Czechoslovak Legionaries striving to make their way home to their newborn republic. Delve further into their thrilling journey to uncover epic missions, each brimming with exciting challenges.

The Legion Tales DLC for Last Train Home is launching on February 1.

 

[Infinitron]

Legion Tales DLC for Last Train Home is OUT NOW!

Experience new, exhilarating stories from the Czechoslovak Legion on their odyssey home. Join Zoltan, a seasoned veteran and master storyteller, as he fondly recalls tales of courage and brotherhood from those who fought on the frontline.

 

[Gerrard]

They released an update numbered 2.0 when it's more like 1.0.2.

 

[Nirvash]

I just can't stop myself from fielding 3 scout and then snipe everything.