Apocalypse Express has some frantic train combat out in Early Access

Apocalypse Express brings exciting real-time post-apocalyptic train defence to Early Access and I'm looking forward to more of it. Note: personal purchase.

It's an action management roguelike, with you picking various locations on a map and then proceeding to different destinations across the tracks, each with their own risks and rewards. It's a frantic race for survival with you running up and down your train, manning and repairing various modules that you expand and upgrade over time while pushing further across the wasteland.

The basic gameplay actually reminded me of the 2012 classic FTL: Faster Than Light from Subset Games, a game I was horribly hooked on. Apocalypse Express definitely gives off that same kind of feeling only with it being fully real-time and you directly controlling a single person. As you travel, various bandits will roll up along side you and start firing, so it's your job to keep the train moving and protected.

It starts off pretty quickly and doesn't slow down, with it getting progressively more difficult with the different types of enemies you'll face. The upgrade system is great though, giving you a chance to add all sorts to your train from entirely new weapons and armour to general upgrades to how everything works.

What makes it so frantic is the repair system. Modules will get destroyed during a run making them inoperable, and you have to at times do a little mini-game to begin the repair, on top of the time it then takes to get them repaired. Things like pressing buttons in a certain combination, or tapping a button when an arrow moves around a circle to a specific spot. All while enemies are still firing at you, and then a turn signal comes up so you need to run to a lever to change tracks.

Here they have is a fantastic base for expansion. That was the point of the initial release, they said "What we've been doing is setting a strong foundation for all of our game systems. This allows us to create content much faster and iterate on existing features and mechanics easier". They have plans to add in more biomes to travel through each with their own unique enemies, bosses and hazards. Along with new modules, local co-op and more.

This definitely feels like a game that would truly become a whole lot better with co-op, might even feel a bit like Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime when they add it. But even so if they just expanded the content and kept it solo - it would still be a huge amount of fun.

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Played on Desktop Linux (Kubuntu) it works perfectly with the latest Proton 9.0-4. Not a great fit for handhelds like Steam Deck just yet but they've said they're working towards features like properly controller support for Steam Deck.