In co-op survival game Railborn, build the weirdest mobile train base anyone's ever seen and chug it around on an alien planet

I like trains for travel because every time you walk from one car to another it's like entering a new biome. Here's the sleeper car, here's the bar car, here's the quiet car. And here's… the underground cavern car? You know that car: it's all dark and earthy and filled with stalactites and mushrooms. You've all been on a train like that, right?

If not, you will when you play first-person co-op survival game Railborn, from Washbear Studio, maker of dino-management sim Parkasaurus. Announced today on the PC Gaming Show 2025, Railborn takes place on an alien planet 350 light years from earth where you're building a train that will act as your mobile base. An extremely interesting train.

From the looks of the first Railborn trailer, you start from truly humble beginnings. You don't have a train, just a small handcar you build from a few squares of wood, barely enough space to stand on while you travel down the tracks. Scavenge for resources along the rail line, gather food and water to keep yourself alive and healthy, craft an engine and power it, and build a small plot to grow vegetables. Before long you'll build your little handcar platform into a proper train, and that's when things start getting wild.

The glimpses we get of these train cars in the trailer are intriguing. There's a greenhouse growing small trees, giant flowers, and some sort of bulbous fruits. Oh, and there's an alien lizard the size of a large dog just chilling in there, too. The next train car is the one I mentioned at the start: it's like a dark cavern biome filled with weird fungi and stalactites. And it's on your train. An aquarium car with fish and undersea plant life? Sure, why the heck not.

Just as exciting, it doesn't look like you have to adhere to a whole lot of rules while building your train. It's not like these are identical train cars filled with different stuff. The building system looks pretty freeform, as the train shown near the end of the trailer is wonderfully absurd looking. Cars of different shapes, glass walls, multiple levels, neon colors. As long as what you're building fits on the tracks, go nuts: that's the vibe I'm getting. It reminds me a lot of Raft, where you built a floating base that could take pretty much whatever shape you want.

You don't have to ride the rails alone: Railborn supports up to four players in co-op. It won't be along until 2026, but I'm already planning to get a ticket and climb aboard.