Enginefall's June open playtest is your ticket to ride, and this online survival shooter is a literal take on high-stakes train raiding

The idea of a loot train has never seemed so real. Forget the grand open worlds that can quickly divide a squad of friends, Enginefall brings a lick of natural linearity back to the survival crafting genre.

Set in the confines of colossal megatrains after a catastrophic worldwide event, Red Rover Interactive’s survival shooter forces you not into a race across the world, but a mad dash to the front of grand locomotives and rocking rust buckets as civilization teeters on collapse. Craft your way onto the tail-end of a train, then blast a path to First Class and the Control Room, grabbing what you can, while you can.

Here, it’s anything but every man for themselves. Unless you say so of course. As Freerailers, the sorry souls unable to afford a seat on the elite’s Titan-class trains as the world took a turn for the worse, you live your life like Robin Hood – taking from the rich just to keep the poor going.

Jumping from your scrappy Dagger Shuttles to the Titan Trains of the upper class, it’s a loud and proud smash and grab mission to redistribute the wealth – and maybe snipe the supplies of a squad resting on their laurels. Hop on board, grab some spare Fuel Cores (and anything else the rich have in abundance), and hightail it back to slowly but surely turn your scrapheap into a formidable Marauder that rides the rails and rivals the cushy carriages of the world leaders who thought they could discard the working class like dogs on the street.

Enginefall is a first-person survival shooter with a tight crafting hook. The gear you scavenge can be hauled back to your own vessel and put to work immediately – upgrading your weapons, reinforcing your base, and keeping your crew ready for the next raid.

You may start with a single-carriage rust bucket, but with enough successful runs it’ll grow into a formidable machine in its own right, with workshops, gun decks, and bunk rooms expanding outward as your operation scales up. The trains you raid today help fund the fortress you build tomorrow.

But raiding high society isn’t always so simple. For those fighting to see another sunrise, the pecking order can see emerging rivals fight opposing frigates for some easy wins – to kick a squad while they’re down, or swoop in on the spoils of a hard-fought victory from a crew still reeling from an expensive expedition.

Enginefall is also a complex social multiplayer sandbox. Like pirates on the high seas, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out on the old steel, stone, and sleepers. The elite will barely notice a supply hit, and they know full well what the effects of infighting do to the less fortunate.

You’re stronger together, but it only takes one knife in the dark to derail a massive operation: a lone wolf who strikes at the last second to make off with a crew’s carefully gathered haul, or a wolf in sheep’s clothing who lures a team into a fight they won’t walk away from.

Take control of a megatrain and install yourself as Conductor, and you’ll become both the envy and enemy of every vagabond on the rails. The seat comes with serious firepower – terrifying Traintech weapons and a fortress that rivals anything else on the tracks, but it also paints a target on your back for every crew hungry for blood and Fuel Cores. And if the threat of an incoming raid isn’t enough to keep you busy, you can always get on the intercom and make it personal: taunting would-be invaders with earworms and insults as they weigh up whether your haul is worth the risk.

You don’t need to rule the rails to bring in the big guns. As long as you don’t hit the dirt too many times, you’ll gradually bolster your arsenal with each successful trip.

Supplies salvaged from trains big and small can be spliced together to create makeshift weaponry, armor, and stronger structures to fortify your own freighter. From simple pistols made from old furniture to improvised SMGs that look like an attempt to blend the humble nail gun with a classic firearm, job lots like nondescript chemicals and uranium ore all serve their purpose back at the crafting base. Spend some to unlock new tech, then line up a crafting wishlist to build up what you’ll need to save your stash from an assault and source more materials from those who don’t.

This June represents Enginefall’s biggest playtest yet – and everyone has a ticket. From June 8-22, you can hitch a ride on the very first Megatrain to leave the station and get a feel for what it takes to transform a salvaged steamer into a serious contender to bridge the gap between the rich and poor at the end of the world. Halfway through, on June 15, the Enginefall playtest leaves the station, switching gears to become the live demo as part of Steam Next Fest.

You’re not just testing the brakes of an early access title. While Enginefall might look like a new trip among the tracks, the trains of this wholly unique survival shooter have been rumbling along for a few years now, with a thriving community playtesting for thousands of hours to forge the core gameplay loop.

You’re grabbing a complimentary ticket to stress test the tracks – a chance to trial an early version of what’s been called the Connected Rail World: a developer-maintained railway universe that keeps Titan-class trains on the tracks for squads big and small to cruelly attack or fiercely defend. Any ride without a captain is sent back to the station, so you don’t need to worry about your crew coming back to a ransacked ride that didn’t even put up a fight.

Got your ticket? Hop on board the Enginefall Discord to present yourself for inspection, and you’ll have a chance to join those who’ve been riding the rails for some time already. But with plenty of trains set to leave the station from June 8, just add Enginefall to your Steam wishlist and click the ‘request access’ button to sign yourself up for a hard life on the tracks. All aboard! The next stop is hell on earth.