WWI survival RTS Last Train Home is Frostpunk meets Company of Heroes, on literal rails

Upcoming RTS Last Train Home will task you with protecting an armoured train as it barrels through post-World War I Russia to escape the civil war. And boy, does it look cold out there.

Czech developers Ashborne Games have seemingly drawn on the real-life exploits of the Czechoslovak Legion, who fought against Lenin’s Bolsheviks at the end of the First World War. The actual battles included skirmishes along the Trans-Siberian Railway as the Legion attempted to evacuate back to France to aid the Allies.

It’s this railway that serves as the focus of Last Train Home, which puts the player in command of the Legion aboard an armoured train that they must escort out of frozen Siberia.

The cold setting lends itself to Last Train Home’s mixture of survival elements - á la Frostpunk’s similarly brutal climate - and real-time strategy, as the player swaps between managing responsibilities between the train’s various carriages - which include a workshop for making ammo and upgrading guns, along with a kitchen needing to carefully ration limited supplies - and Company of Heroes-style battles with various objectives to clear the way along the tracks.

As well as needing to fight your way through directly, managing your troops’ morale, ensuring there are enough resources and dealing with events will all play a part in making it out alive.

Along the way, you’ll be able to level up your troops to outfit them with better abilities and improved equipment, assigning medals and learning more about their backstories - which will probably make you feel even guiltier when they freeze to death.

Last Train Home is headed to Steam, but yet to get a release date. Between the real-life inspiration and the shades of Frostpunk and Company of Heroes, this is one I’ll have my eye on - and, given that you lot voted Frostpunk one of your fave survival games evs, you should too.