Railroads Online

About Railroads Online

Railroads Online is a single player and multiplayer open world management game with a economy theme. It was developed by Stefan Kelnberger and was released on December 5, 2024. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Build your dream railroad across a huge open world! You can build tracks and stations, drive detailed locomotives, and transport goods to earn money and experience. Play exciting Online Multiplayer sessions with your friends or create your very own Single-player sandbox!

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Reviews

75%Audience ScoreBased on 4,789 reviews

gameplay64 positive mentions

stability281 negative mentions

Unique sandbox gameplay allowing players to build their own rail networks and run steam locomotives.
Immersive and detailed steam locomotive models with realistic sound effects and physics simulation.
Enjoyable multiplayer experience, especially when playing with friends, offering cooperative train operations and creative freedom.

Game is plagued with bugs, frequent crashes, and poor optimization leading to frustrating gameplay.
Track building system is cumbersome, unintuitive, and difficult to master, often causing derailments and wasted time.
Development has stalled for over a year with no updates or communication, making the game effectively abandoned and incomplete.

gameplay
297 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
22% positive mentions, 65% neutral mentions, 13% negative mentions
The gameplay of Railroads Online offers a promising core loop combining track building, train operation, and economic management, with engaging and immersive mechanics praised by train enthusiasts. However, it suffers from numerous bugs, clunky and unpolished track laying, tedious grinding, lack of key features like financial management and objectives, and inconsistent updates that prioritize new content over fixing foundational gameplay issues. While some players find it rewarding once mastered, many criticize the frustrating UI, poor optimization, and a sense of abandonment that hamper the overall experience.
- “Gameplay is at the heart of Railroads Online, combining elements of train driving simulation with complex network management and economic strategy.”
- “The game also supports user-created content, expanding possibilities with custom scenarios, trains, and maps that keep the gameplay fresh and varied.”
- “Loving this game, once you learn to lay track correctly and learn the mechanics, it challenges you to build a railroad to serve industries in whatever way you can think of.”
- “The major thing dragging out the gameplay is that cutting trees down cost money.”
- “No significant updates, gameplay that doesn't even come close to a train simulation.”
- “Best way to describe it is it feels like they slapped together a bunch of rushed game mechanics so that they could call it completed, then dump the game and leave.”
stability
284 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
1% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 99% negative mentions
The game suffers from pervasive stability issues, including frequent bugs, glitches, and performance drops, especially in multiplayer where physics and synchronization problems are common. Despite being officially released, it still feels incomplete and poorly optimized, with many longstanding issues unresolved and reports of crashes and frustrating gameplay challenges. While some players find it enjoyable in single-player and appreciate ongoing updates, the overall consensus is that the game remains a buggy, unstable experience in need of substantial fixes and polish.
- “If you're looking for a bug-free game and something that's constantly supported, just wait for Century of Steam.”
- “Runs great with a wide selection of engines and cars.”
- “If you are expecting a bug-free experience, it's best to wait and not get mad at the developers or yourself.”
- “The game seems very incomplete for being out of early access: kinda buggy with cars at higher speeds, feels like creative mode is standard with no story or objectives. You freely place tracks, buildings, and props that don't cost anything, making it easy to exploit. Only narrow gauge is available, so larger steam locomotives can't be used. Lately, the game feels dead as devs likely moved on without adding workshop support or dev tools that would improve playability and replayability.”
- “Honestly, after playing from the very beginning and attempting to play the game through the years, the way they just dropped the game after version 1.0 with buggy, band-aid solutions for game-breaking issues like random popping derailments in multiplayer is outrageous for a game to be abandoned this way.”
- “This game is an abandoned, buggy mess. Please save your money and don't buy this game. If you want a good train simulator, Derail Valley supports VR, has an enticing gameplay loop, and still gets major updates including train customization and driving.”
graphics
256 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
42% positive mentions, 51% neutral mentions, 7% negative mentions
The game's graphics are frequently praised for their detailed and realistic train models, scenic environments, and immersive visuals, especially at higher settings. However, performance is a major concern, with players reporting severe optimization issues, crashes, blurry visuals, and poor frame rates even on capable PCs. While the graphics support the simulation's atmosphere well, many users find the game's visual quality inconsistent and hampered by bugs and lack of hardware optimization.
- “Absolutely baller of a game, totally recommend, wonderful graphics, and certainly wonderful locomotive details.”
- “So far it just keeps getting better with each update, and the recent graphics and dynamic weather/time update with Unreal Engine 5 is simply stunning.”
- “The graphics make this a beautiful game from the vast scenery to the textured details of each freight car.”
- “My laptop crashes itself past the lowest graphics settings.”
- “It's a barely decent game if you have a PC made of steel; the graphics driver crashes constantly trying to load a map. You can't customize any locomotives or rolling stock after purchase. Tutorials are uninformative, leaving you to figure things out yourself. It's not laptop friendly, and turning down graphics by even one setting makes the game look awful—either fancy graphics that may crash your computer or pixelated polygons. Setting to DirectX 12 causes repeated crashes, requiring uninstall and reinstall. Each update needs 30 GB of storage for no reason. Better to wait for Century of Steam, which looks much better. The DLCs add little. Please spare yourself this buggy mess.”
- “The game fills the physical memory on my graphics card to the point of hard-crashing both the game and my desktop, often requiring a full system reboot to recover. All objects are loaded into memory when a world is loaded, dumping all models and textures onto the graphics card with no regard for available physical memory, causing performance and stability issues.”
optimization
180 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
9% positive mentions, 65% neutral mentions, 26% negative mentions
The game suffers from severe and persistent optimization issues, especially since switching to Unreal Engine 5, leading to poor performance, frequent bugs, and multiplayer instability even on high-end PCs. Despite initial promise and some improvements, performance has generally worsened over time with little effective developer response, making the game frustrating and often unplayable for many users. Multiplayer performance remains a major letdown, and ongoing development delays have left optimization and stability problems largely unaddressed.
- “Performance as host has been buttery smooth, 60 fps on max settings on my Asus TUF 505 laptop.”
- “I am able to play with a friend across the globe on acceptable performance terms.”
- “The game is well made, the performance is quite good and it all around looks great.”
- “The switch to Unreal Engine 5 ruined performance, requiring numerous patches to optimize; the game consumes excessive RAM despite unimpressive graphics.”
- “The game initially showed promise, but development deteriorated alongside optimization and physics; it demands more power than stated, runs poorly even on high-end PCs, is riddled with bugs, and does not deliver on its promises, making it not worth the price.”
- “For over six months, the 'spline update' development has been stuck, which involves a complete rewrite removing all physics interactions; this new system is less optimized and more bug-ridden than the previous one, failing to fix multiplayer stability issues and worsening performance significantly.”
grinding
136 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
0% positive mentions, 5% neutral mentions, 95% negative mentions
Grinding and track-building in this game are widely described as tedious, time-consuming, and frustrating, with many players citing difficult controls, frequent derailments, and slow progression as major drawbacks. While the gameplay can be rewarding and enjoyable for train enthusiasts once mastered, the steep learning curve, frequent bugs, and repetitive grinding can significantly detract from the experience for more casual players. Developers have made some improvements to ease track laying, but the grind-heavy nature and lack of quality-of-life features remain prominent complaints.
- “The game is grindy and not fun to play since most of your experience is just walking and loading cars; when I was buying this I was expecting to enjoy building tracks but I did not.”
- “Track laying is incredibly tedious, with no markers or planning.”
- “The track laying system for the working version of tracks is extremely tedious and its replacement that has been 6 months in the making is not even remotely close to release.”
music
56 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
23% positive mentions, 68% neutral mentions, 9% negative mentions
The music in the game receives mixed reviews: some praise its fitting, period-appropriate, and occasionally lively soundtrack, while others lament the removal of a previously beloved and more expansive OST, describing the current music as repetitive, generic, or soulless. Several users suggest the soundtrack could benefit from more variety and optional background sounds, with some resorting to external playlists for a better listening experience. Despite criticisms, the music remains a significant draw for many players.
- “The soundtrack is absolutely banging and for that reason alone, I'm keeping this one.”
- “The soundtrack is subtle, focusing on background themes that suit the industrial and expansive setting rather than drawing attention away from gameplay.”
- “Very easy to invest hours into, with the perfect soundtrack to accompany it.”
- “Still busted, still jank, music still bad, controls worse...”
- “Also, the soundtrack is ass.”
- “And replaced 30 enjoyable songs with like 3-5 garbage songs.”
story
38 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
8% positive mentions, 74% neutral mentions, 18% negative mentions
The game lacks an overarching story, missions, or clear objectives, offering instead a sandbox-style creative mode where players build freely without in-game goals. While some users appreciate the open-ended nature, many criticize the absence of narrative elements and structured gameplay, which leads to a repetitive and somewhat incomplete experience. The potential for adding story-driven content or quests is noted as a desirable improvement to enhance engagement.
- “I think they need to update some audio files, and maybe have more color schemes for some of their freight and engines, but other than that, this game, in my opinion, is a remarkable comeback story.”
- “A group of very dedicated and talented individuals rushed to volunteer to support the game, and helped Stefan (Keume) plot out a roadmap to keep with the promised theme of an American narrow gauge simulator with multiplayer elements.”
- “Moral of the story is that while there are some things currently still needing to be fixed (it is early access after all), there are also many incredible features offered by the game which make it extraordinarily unique and fun.”
- “The game seems very incomplete for being out of early access, kinda buggy with cars at higher speeds. It feels like creative mode is standard with no story or objectives. You freely place tracks, buildings, facilities, and props that don't cost a thing, making it very easy to exploit. The game feels dead as devs likely moved on without adding workshop support or dev tools to improve playability and replayability.”
- “It definitely feels like a tech demo. There is nothing in the field of story or scenery and after one playthrough, the game gets boring and repetitive.”
- “Be aware: there is no storyline or anything that helps you get started.”
humor
34 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions
The game's humor arises mainly from its quirky physics, amusing bugs, and janky multiplayer moments, which many players find entertaining—especially when playing with friends. While some find these glitches funny initially, the novelty can wear off and become frustrating over time. Overall, a sense of humor and patience enhance the enjoyment of this early access title.
- “Railroads Online is a good game. My biggest complaint is the progression: gameplay was slow until I got my second loco, the class 22, then the gameplay ramped up really fast. I also do not like how little logs the sawmill holds. But otherwise, it's a great game with funny (realistic) physics and realistic trains. Definitely worth it overall, 9.5/10 excellent game.”
- “Playing it with a mate of mine, we've had more fun laughing at the bugs than raging at them.”
- “Not only can you get up to some of the wackiest, most tear-jerkingly hilarious antics in any train-related game ever.”
monetization
24 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
4% positive mentions, 4% neutral mentions, 92% negative mentions
The monetization of this game is widely criticized as a cash grab, with users frustrated by lack of meaningful updates, buggy content, and frequent paid DLCs. Many feel the developers prioritized quick profits over long-term quality and support, leading to abandonment and a negative perception of the game's future.
- “Looks so far like Astragon will save this game, even said they don't plan on adding microtransactions (hopefully they stick to that plan).”
- “There are so many minor issues that could have been worked out to make this game truly an enjoyable experience, but it appears it was just a 'release to consoles for a quick cash grab, then abandon' game.”
- “I had high hopes for this game when it came out, but the devs turned it into a cash grab, and then they abandoned it.”
- “I've owned this game since it was first public and I can honestly say, this game has become a bug-filled cash grab.”
replayability
16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
19% positive mentions, 62% neutral mentions, 19% negative mentions
Replayability in the game is currently limited due to its incomplete feel, lack of objectives, and absence of larger locomotive options, leading to easy exploitation and a stagnant experience without ongoing developer support. However, recent updates such as improved building systems, multiple maps, and added social features have enhanced playability and added some depth, suggesting potential for increased replay value as the game matures. Overall, while bugs and design flaws reduce immediate replay appeal, ongoing improvements hint at a more engaging experience in the future.
- “This social dimension adds depth and replayability, turning what could be a solitary simulation into a vibrant community experience.”
- “Along with having more than one map now, adding more replayability to the game.”
- “The effect of the physics, early-game growth and industry interaction is that the game is highly playable and replayable, because no stage of growth feels punishing.”
- “The game seems very incomplete for being out of early access, kinda buggy with cars at higher speeds. It feels like creative mode is standard with no story or objectives. You freely place tracks, buildings, facilities, and props that don't cost a thing, making it very easy to exploit the game. Only narrow gauge is available, so none of the bigger steam locos can be used. Lately, the game feels dead. Developers likely finished the game and moved on without adding workshop support or dev tools that would make it more playable and replayable.”
- “The replay value of this game is so low that you need to rethink the foundation and framework of this game.”
- “If you're interested in the game, I recommend just keeping an eye on it and waiting until it becomes a lot more playable or has a lot more content, or until it costs 50 to 75% less.”
atmosphere
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
70% positive mentions, 10% neutral mentions, 20% negative mentions
The atmosphere in the game is generally praised for its immersive and functional design, with effective lighting, seasonal changes, and realistic train sounds enhancing the experience. While the graphics are not cutting-edge, they support clarity and immersion well, though some users note repetitive audio and occasional bugs that hinder the overall ambiance. Overall, the game captures its railway setting authentically but still has room for improvement, particularly in enhancing sound variety and environmental details.
- “The graphics may not be cutting-edge, but they effectively support the simulation’s immersive atmosphere, emphasizing functionality and clarity over flashy visuals.”
- “Sound design is functional and atmospheric, with realistic train noises, whistles, and ambient environmental sounds that enhance immersion without becoming repetitive.”
- “It is very atmospheric, capturing narrow gauge railways in the US quite well, and the developers put work into having the seasons change, which is nice.”
- “The game has potential, but the fact that developers and other associated members keep quitting and stating that management oversight and atmosphere caused them to leave is a huge warning sign.”
- “If the water textures and overall atmosphere were better, it would be bumped up a tier; as it stands, it's not bad.”
emotional
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions
Players express strong negative emotions toward the game, feeling frustrated and disappointed due to technical issues, poor UI, and confusing tutorials. Many experience emotional distress from lost progress and feel their investment was not worthwhile.
- “You're taking a bit of a risk buying and more so emotionally investing in rro!”
- “100s of hours into them none made me feel the way this one did.”
- “My friends and I have lost so much work, it's heartbreaking.”

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Play Times

67h Median play time

107h Average play time

10-199h Spent by most gamers

*Based on 49 analyzed playthroughs

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Frequently Asked Questions

Railroads Online is a open world management game with economy theme. Common tags for Railroads Online include first-person, indie, colony sim, exploration, gaming and others.

Railroads Online is available on Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5, Windows and others.

On average players spend around 107 hours playing Railroads Online.

Railroads Online was released on December 5, 2024.

Railroads Online was developed by Stefan Kelnberger.

Railroads Online has received mostly positive reviews from players. Most players liked Railroads Online for its gameplay but disliked it for its stability.

Railroads Online is a single player game with multiplayer and local co-op support.

Similar games include SimRail: The Railway Simulator, EmergeNYC, Railroader, Medieval Engineers, Osiris: New Dawn and others.

Railroads Online

Platforms

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Reviews

gameplay

stability

graphics

optimization

grinding

music

story

humor

monetization

replayability

atmosphere

emotional

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