Voidtrain Review: When Cosmic Horror Meets Thomas the Tank Engine
What do you get when you cross Raft with Thomas the Tank Engine and throw them both into the void? Apparently, you get Voidtrain, a game that answers the age-old question: "What if trains could float?" It's like someone played BioShock Infinite and thought, "You know what this needs? More train customization and worse gunplay."
All Aboard the Jank Express
First off, let's address the gorgeous elephant in the room: this game looks fantastic. The void is more aesthetically pleasing than my entire Instagram feed, and the steampunk-meets-cosmic-horror vibe is so well done it makes me want to wear a top hat while screaming into the abyss. The atmosphere is thicker than a London fog, and twice as mysterious.
Building Your Way to Glory (Slowly)
The core gameplay loop is simple: gather resources, build train, get attacked by void-sharks (because of course there are void-sharks), repeat. It's like Minecraft had a baby with the Orient Express, and that baby decided to float in space. The building mechanics are actually pretty satisfying, when they're not being as clunky as a steam engine with square wheels.
Combat: Where Fun Goes to Die
Holy mother of recoil, the combat in this game. You know how in most games, shooting a gun feels satisfying? Well, forget all that. Shooting in Voidtrain feels like trying to aim a fire hose while riding a mechanical bull during an earthquake. The screen shake is so violent it could qualify as a natural disaster.
The AI has exactly two states: omniscient god or complete vegetable. Enemy guns do either microscopic damage or enough to make you think you just got hit by the actual train. There's no in-between, no nuance, just pure, unadulterated chaos. It's like the developers watched John Wick and thought, "What if we did the exact opposite of this?"
The Great Storage Crisis of 2024
Storage management in this game is about as intuitive as trying to parallel park a train. You'll spend half your time playing Storage Tetris™ and the other half running back and forth because you forgot that one crucial component that's buried somewhere in your seventeen different chests. Marie Kondo would have a stroke trying to organize this mess.
Animations: The Long Goodbye
Want to pull out your build menu? Great, just wait three years while your character goes through their entire morning yoga routine. Every animation in this game takes longer than a DMV visit. Your character moves with all the urgency of a sloth on vacation. Even sprinting feels like you're running through invisible molasses.
Story: It Exists™
There's a story here, somewhere, narrated by someone who sounds like they're auditioning for a Morgan Freeman impersonation contest. It's... fine? Like finding a penny on the street – technically it's something, but you're not going to write home about it.
The Potential Express
Here's the thing: despite all its flaws, there's something genuinely captivating about Voidtrain. Maybe it's the gorgeous void environments, or the satisfaction of building your dream train, or maybe I'm just developing Stockholm syndrome. But beneath all the jank and questionable design choices lies a game that could be genuinely special.
Conclusion: A Train Worth Catching?
Voidtrain is like that project car your uncle swears he'll finish someday – full of potential, currently half-broken, but somehow still lovable. When it works, it's a unique and atmospheric experience that no other game quite matches. When it doesn't, well, at least the void looks pretty while you're cursing at your screen.
Score: 6.9/10
We at NLM received a key for this game for free, this however didn't impact our review in any way. Our chiropractor bills from all the screen shake, on the other hand...