Review - Railway Empire: Complete Collection

I like trains. I like them as a concept, I like their history, I like travelling on them, and I like computer games about them.

Railway Empire Complete Collection.

I like trains. I like them as a concept, I like their history, I like travelling on them, and I like computer games about them.

When I had the opportunity to review Railway Empire: Complete Collection, I was very keen to check it out. It’s been developed by Gaming Minds Studios and published by Kalypso Media for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

The idea is that you’re a railway magnate in the period roughly spanning 1830-1930, charged with developing a railway company and connecting cities across whichever continent you’re playing in.

There’s a range of steam engines available, from early boilers on wheels to heavy-duty ten-wheeler express locomotives. You are tasked with building stations, laying tracks, maintaining engines and making sure raw materials, passengers, mail and freight get from where they are to where they need to go.

Railway Empire CC UK.

It’s a time-honoured formula – the genre has been around since the 1990s with games like A-Train and Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon – and Railway Empire doesn’t add much too it because it doesn’t really need to.

This isn’t a heavyweight transport simulator – for that, I heartily recommend Transport Fever 2. But it sits a tier or two below it. That’s not to say it isn’t a complex game – it is – but I just didn’t feel like I was fully in control of what was going on.

There was an element of depth lacking which I couldn’t quite place – small elements like not being able to pick exactly which carriages my trains were using. The AI handles that, although you can tell it to prioritise certain types. It has a confusing signals system, and menus that aren’t always super intuitive to navigate didn’t help.

The game is very similar to the old Railway Tycoon games – right down to the stock market manipulation – which is a good thing, because these games were superb. However, it doesn’t seem to know if it wants to essentially be a digital model train set or a really in-depth business/transport management simulator.

The Australian setting of Railway Empire CC.

One of the interesting things about Railway Empire: Complete Collection is it includes Australia (well, the southeast part, anyway) – something you don’t see much of in train simulator games despite the importance of railways in our development and Australia being one of the few countries which is expanding its rail network.

It includes expansions covering Mexico, the Great Lakes, Crossing the Andes, Great Britain & Ireland, France, Germany and Northern Europe, although surprisingly, there’s no scenario for the Trans-Siberian Railway or the Orient Express.

I didn’t love the caricature style of the opponent players, although the in-game graphics themselves were fine. Watching steam trains chugging over a map is always enjoyable.

The AI opponents all seemed pretty similar, but fortunately you can play in a sandbox where it’s just you, the map, and a bank full of money waiting to start a railway empire – which was where I had the most fun.

Railway Empire CC Town.

Ultimately, Railway Empire didn’t satisfy me as much as I hoped – not because it’s a bad game, but because it simply wasn’t as customisable as Transport Fever 2 and it was missing an added layer or two of depth.

While that’s a negative for me, it might not be for someone wanting something that’s less involved but wants more than to just watch trains trundle around a map, so don’t throw your ticket in the bin right away.

There is plenty of worthwhile content here and plenty of challenge too, and the game certainly looks and plays well. I didn’t have any technical issues or graphical problems and I’m confident with a bit more time I might be able to get a better handle on how the mechanics in the firebox are working.

Is this one you should be running to catch? No, but if you’re looking for a railway excursion without needing to be a train anorak, then this is might be the journey for you.

Railway Empire CC Prairie.