PREVIEW: Enginefall Crams Together Trains, Social Survival, and Extraction, and It’s Brilliant

Enginefall was on my radar when I was invited to a developer-guided preview, but it’s now sitting near the top of my most-anticipated games list. After a couple of hours, Enginefall has lodged itself in my brain, and I’ve witnessed firsthand the potential this post-apocalyptic sandbox survival shooter with extraction mechanics has.

It’s a little complex at first, but Enginefall is worth the time it takes to understand the fundamentals. From there, you’ve got a bounty of a game ahead, and I’m sure that Red Rover Interactive, the developer, will finesse this title further before it launches towards the end of 2026.

Read on to check out the full scope of my Enginefall preview.

Enginefall Plunges Players Into the Apocalypse… With Trains

Enginefall is locked firmly around the concept of trains and the role they play at the end of the world. But don’t get it twisted; this isn’t some railway simulation game!

This post-apocalyptic ‘social survival simulator’ takes place in 2157, after the fall of the human race. What’s left of the planet has taken to a vast railway network, relying on colossal ‘megatrains’ to keep moving, stay alive, and transport resources. This is where life begins, persists, and ends, and for the right person, it’s where fame and fortune can be found.

That’s the concept I was working with when I started my Enginefall preview, diving through a short tutorial before heading out on my first mission.

Enginefall starts with a ‘Dagger’, a mobile home base of sorts that serves as a player’s hub, and it’s from here that they launch intense missions, venturing out and boarding megatrains with scores of other players, all in search of riches – or just the basics to get by.

Players start each mission at the back of these gargantuan trains, after having kitted themselves out on their Dagger. The goal is to push through the train, which is made up of several cars, each split across multiple levels, and make it to the front to seize the best loot.

On the way, there will be AI enemies, environmental threats, stacks of loot to secure, and, of course, scores of other players to contend with. Whether you form tenuous alliances or shoot on sight, your Enginefall journey is your own, and as this is an emergent social shooter, you’re bound only by the people around you and your own imagination.

Almost nowhere is safe, nobody can be trusted, and everybody is after the same loot.

Player-Driven Excitement

Enginefall plants you on a train, and from there, the world is your oyster. You’ll need to slap down a base, expand on it over time, use it as a temporary operations hub, and defend it against all comers. You’re free to farm, craft, kill, barter, and find, and you’ll quickly learn how fast life moves on the megatrain.

You’re given around five hours per ‘raid’, and that’s before an event named enginefall occurs. In those five hours, you and your team will have multiple lives, and you’ll be able to engage with typical crafting mechanics, build freely aboard the train, raid other players’ bases, and engage in side missions as you explore these vast vessels aboard the rails.

The extraction element I mentioned in the headline comes into play here. As you dig through the train, whether you’re probing the poisonous undercarriage, the luxurious first-class suites, or the resource-heavy furnace car, you’ll find all manner of rewards and loot. But what do you do with that loot when you’ve secured it?

Well, you get it off the train. You can either do this by using a ‘skyhook’ mechanic to safely extract a few items, or you can take your entire backpack and head back to your Dagger, ending your run.

But those resources will undoubtedly come in handy aboard the train. You’ll need to craft and maintain equipment and weapons, expand your temporary base, build machines, bust down doors, upgrade your gear, and perhaps even share a little with some newfound friends.

If you get a thick backpack full of loot, it’s up to you whether you extract it or try to pug something away in your minibase somewhere to keep it safe from prying eyes. Just remember not to leave it behind.

At all times, you’re at risk. Players can ambush you, betray you, pickpocket you, or steal (or demolish) your base, along with anything you’ve gathered or built. It’s like Rust, if Rust took place aboard a moving train plunging through a torn landscape.

You can chat with other players, use emotes, and form legitimate alliances as you plunder every megatrain, but even those bonds can be broken at any given moment.

Enginefall Starts Simple, But Craves Complexity

The introduction to Enginefall is delightfully simple, featuring a charming tutorial voiced by none other than Ben Starr, who is fast becoming one of the most recognizable voices (and faces) in gaming. Once you’ve been shown the ropes, you’ll be offered your first mission or two, and that’s where you start to identify the depth of Enginefall.

You can theoretically go into this game with nothing to your name, and by hook, crook, and craft, you can leave with your pockets bursting after a five-hour raid that has seen you become the master of the entire train.

You’ll climb ranks, scavenge blueprints and schematics, dig up keycards to unlock doors, and contend with the class system. You’ll face off against clever AI enemies, manage relationships, craft your way through multiple tiers of equipment and resources, and keep your gear topped up and working to protect and defend you – or to slaughter anyone else aboard.

Even your Dagger, which starts small and unassuming, can eventually become a tender to a full-fledged train, boasting more space, a bounty of room to build, and bursting at the seams with high-tier equipment storage, packed to the hilt with loot. This is your ‘Marauder Train’, and it’s a persistent thing that is yours to command.

It’s all about Fuel Cores, precious resources that keep things afloat, or on-rails, at least. You’ll use your Dagger to launch forays into the world, seeking Fuel Cores, and once you’ve got your Marauder train, you’ll keep it running and upgraded with more Fuel Cores. Other players can raid your train, and you can raid their trains, all in the pursuit of, yep, you guessed it, Fuel Cores.

Everything is at risk all the time, so even if you’re the cream of the crop, you need to be aware that everything you own can be stolen. If you don’t perform enough upkeep, things will decay, and if you’re not protecting what’s yours, other users will usurp or destroy what you’ve built. That’s assuming you don’t get a train full of friendly people… Anything is possible.

Enginefall’s introduction left me feeling extremely positive about this game. I’m confident the kinks will be ironed out, and as the developers explained, there’s a bold pipeline of content and plans for post-launch, which should be arriving later this year, all being well.

Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord server if Enginefall sounds like your kind of game.

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