EverRail Takes The Survival Genre Into A New Ice Age

The survival genre has gone through a huge boon in recent years, with plenty of gamers fully immersing themselves in worlds that require them to keep their players alive more than just making sure they’re victorious in their missions. These games thrive by dropping players into dangerous settings and letting them loose into the larger world, putting a greater emphasis on the challenges faced by the players and the necessity of finding enough supplies to make it another night. Finding the right setting or challenge is key here, with games like Stranded Deep using remote locations to great effect.

A new entry to the genre, EverRail, raises the stakes even higher by more or less wiping out the world before the game even begins. Tasked with maintaining an ever-running train amidst a new ice age, players will spend their time in EverRail exploring the remnants of the world and doing their best to survive. It’s a clever way to raise the stakes of the survival game experience, especially as players work together to keep their new home up and running amid the collapse of the rest of the world.

How EverRail Raises The Stakes For The Survival Genre

EveRail is the Snowpiercer game you never knew you wanted. Developed by Icebird Studios, EverRail puts players onboard a massive train as it blazes through a world transformed by a massive winter. The stark white environments create an open-ended sense of exploration and desperation that benefits the procedurally generated world. As players explore, they can discover the remnants of towns, wrecked trains, or collapsing stations. If players find survivors, they can bring them onto the train to help manage everything. The gameplay sees players using their train to dive deeper into the world, finding supplies and crafting them into new gear and weapons while trying to turn their little train into a genuine refuge for survivors.

The trick is that the train requires a certain amount of constant movement, meaning any time the players stop to explore a compound, face off with enemies, and collect new resources is a risk. Spending too long in the base will lead to the train breaking down and the death of people on board. Each and every death in the game is permanent, raising the stakes for every supply run or encounter with drone enemies. Survival is the primary factor here, with a more effectively designed train working at top efficiency serving as a far more effective means of longevity.

Combat is a fairly straightforward third-person shooter, but the actual gameplay appeal is less rooted in the firefights and more in the actual act of survival. Base management uses the supplies collected in various runs to upgrade and repair the train. Upgrades can include new means of resource refinement, which becomes trickier as gameplay carries on and players begin to run out of space to expand on the train. Players can also use an airborne drone to explore the larger surrounding area in search of other locations to check out and raid. It’s also key to finding obstructions in the tracks before the train hits them, giving players a chance to reroute if possible or brace for impact. It’s all an effective way to underscore the stakes and make the survival game feel even more harrowing.

EverRail’s Focus On Multiplayer Is Key

EverRail’s big selling point is that it is a unique survival experience that can be embarked upon by multiple players. Up to four players can team up at any given time to work together, ensuring that each outpost raid or combat encounter goes more smoothly. It puts some natural emphasis on the importance of collaboration and cooperation in the face of catastrophe. It leans well into the survival genre, a style of gameplay that can often feel naturally isolating due to the genre’s innate need to keep players scrambling at all times. The design of EverRail allows the world to put emphasis on the challenges faced by survivors, while providing a central gameplay mechanic that relies on canny survival skills, pragmatic decision-making, and forward-thinking approaches.

EverRail is an interesting game that brings a survivalist touch to the co-op experience. While the game has enough engaging qualities to be effective as a solo title, there’s an innate sense of community that develops once players truly dig into building out their train. It becomes more than just a base of operations or digital homestead but a place of survival in the face of a never-ending sea of snow outside. Departing the train and seeing the vast open fields of nothing adds a sense of scale to the experience, where enduring despite the challenge becomes an emotional component of the game. EverRail takes that underlying defiant spirit of films like Snowpiercer and makes it more desperate, turning a potentially bleak title into something more engrossing.