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Revisiting a historical period where Czechoslovak soldiers held significant influence in Russia before the first country even formed was not what I had on my Gaming in 2023 bingo card but Last Train Home led me exactly there. Thankfully, it was a fun adventure even though the atmosphere was pretty bleak, on account of the soldiers being stuck behind enemy lines in a post-World War 1 era.
Story
Last Train Home is based on the exploits of the Czechoslovak Legion, a significant group of soldiers whose purpose was to fight on Russia's behalf in exchange for its support for creation of a new sovereign state - Czechoslovakia. Ironically, the Legion existed before the country itself and some even call it the land's future namesake.
The game doesn't go into that part too much and instead focuses on what was happening in Russia itself as the country became embroiled in the civil war between the Red and White armies. The Legion was a sizeable force, aligned with neither of them, meaning both armies wanted them either on their side or out of the conflict. Unfortunately, "out of the conflict" did not mean letting them go over the border, which ended up forcing the soldiers to take a train eastward to Vladivostok, from where they would travel to their newborn country.
Last Train Home's story picks up right as all of these parameters are established, and the soldiers figure out their predicament, forcing them to travel over Siberia.
The narrative is told mostly from the point of view of Captain Langer, although the player themselves is an unnamed officer who ends up being Langer's superior. Ultimately, the writers managed to infuse the game into the annals of history in a respective manner as they created a story that could pass for truth even though the decisions are actually made by people living in 2023 and onwards.
Fantastic voice acting, both in English and Immersive versions, helped deliver the story in a compelling manner, always keeping me on the toes while waiting to see what kind of trouble would be thrown at the Legion next and how I might be able to solve it.
The Immersive language option is quite unique in modern video games. It doesn't consist of a single language and uses Czech, Slovak and Russian interchangeably, depending on who is speaking with whom and where. This offers a thick layer of immersion that is really hard to pass up, although it comes with the drawback of having to focus on subtitles too much.
Alternatively, if you go for English, the voiceovers are still very good, although hearing a bunch of Czechoslovaks and Russians speak with British accents gets almost as confusing as when a Serb kills an Austrian in Bosnia so you, an Englishman, have to fight the Germans in France.
All of this is carefully wrapped in a bleak and depressive atmosphere which is to be expected in the years following the Great War, with a new one on the horizon. The game does a tremendous job in driving this point home, which is one of the reasons it reminds me of Frostpunk so much.
Gameplay
While the atmosphere does very well to convey the bleak outlook of everyone involved, it is gameplay that keeps reminding of Frostpunk even more. As I rode the train to the east, I found myself beset by calamities left and right. The soldiers would pick up wounds in combat, they would get ill if they found themselves in a train car without proper insulation, the storage was getting rat infestations and even the train engine would break every now and then, leaving all the occupants in jeopardy.
You can reduce the chance of all these issues happening but some of them are all but guaranteed to happen at one point or the other. After all, that is what such games are all about - the player's ability to face crises and react to them accordingly. Last Train Home doesn't shy away from throwing these problems at the player, which makes the situation properly tense, despite the journey lasting for months on end.
On top of all that, there is the RTS aspect as the player has to direct their soldiers whenever a squad gets into conflict with enemies. There are four distinct soldier classes that you craft a squad from and having the right people at the right time impacts mission difficulty significantly. The other thing that affects difficulty is the setting itself.
Ashborne Games really let their creativity shine here as the options were far from the regular things like easy, medium and hard. Instead, the options are allowing the player to focus on one aspect of the game, such as the RTS parts or the aforementioned crisis management. Picking the latter option really gives the vibe of playing Frostpunk with a train while the former turns the game into an almost purely real-time strategy. There are other options as well if you want to play the game as it was envisioned by the devs or just breeze through it.
Speaking of the RTS side of things, it is fairly similar to Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 where you have to go through a pile of different missions with a fairly small squad. As such, beating those missions is more about knowing your soldiers and getting the most out of them rather than overwhelming the enemy force with superior numbers.
The only person getting overwhelmed is the player as the combination of train, personnel, resource and combat mechanics are thrown at them and unfortunately, you just have to take it if you don't want to miss out on all the game has to offer. Thankfully, pacing is good so Last Train Home will not just throw you into the deep end immediately and will give you some time to familiarise yourself with all of the above.
Nothing is perfect in the world and neither is Last Train Home, which does start feeling repetitive and slightly dragged out towards the end. Additionally, some encounters suffer from poor visual clarity, although most of them are just fine.
Graphics and performance
Graphics in Last Train Home are serviceable, for the lack of a better word. I did not find myself disappointed about the looks of anything at any point but neither was I amazed. In other words - it works so it doesn't need fixing.
One complaint that I do have is the lack of visual clarity at some points during combat encounters. If the camera is not zoomed out to the maximum, it will be hard to spot enemies before they spot your troops. On the other hand, if it is zoomed out, it is easy to miss enemies since they become so small on the screen.
As for performance, the game did not stutter, freeze or crash at any point for me. Considering that RX 5700 XT, Ryzen 5 3600 and 16GB RAM are nowhere near the high end in modern gaming, I would say the optimisation is rather good.
Verdict
Last Train Home takes players through a masterfully recreated historical period of the Czechoslovak Legion and keeps the player focused at all times through intricate mechanics. While it can seem overbearing at times, it ultimately ends up a fun romp through hostile lands but the length of the game might start feeling like a little too much for some players.
The Good
Good mix of classic RTS and management strategy- Amazing voice acting
- Atmosphere really sells the time period
- Solid performance
The Bad
It gets overwhelming at times- Important points are not visible enough in combat
- I felt the game dragged on after a while
