Game Information
Game Title: Last Train Home
Platforms:
- PC (Nov 28, 2023)
Trailer:
Developer: Ashborne Games
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Review Aggregator:
OpenCritic - 82 average - 92% recommended - 13 reviews
Critic Reviews
AltChar - Adnan Kljajić - 80 / 100
Last Train Home offers a blend of genres we didn’t have before and does it fairly well as it presents us with an interesting adventure based on real-life events.
But Why Tho? - Kyle Foley - 8 / 10
Last Train Home does a great job of meshing a challenging strategic experience with an immersive setting and story. The difficulty curve can get overwhelming for less experienced RTS players, but the attention to detail and the wonderful character interactions make it worth taking the time to learn the ropes.
Checkpoint Gaming - Alex Beaty - 6 / 10
War never changes; trains are always going to be running late, though. Last Train Home lets players experience the trials of band of soldiers on a 9000km journey home. This management game is no walk in the park and considering the subject matter this is for the best. If you’re familiar with RTS games then this is going to hit that sweet spot just fine. If you aren’t familiar with the genre but find the narrative compelling then be ready to play stealthy and fiddle with the difficulty settings. Last Train Home requires time but if you’re willing to persist and jump on the train, then this ride might find space within your real-time strategy game library.
GAMES.CH - Joel Kogler - German - 82%
Last Train Home tells a gritty and emotional story of Czechoslovakian legionnaires trying to reach their distant home after the conclusion of World War I. As foreign armed forces in a now war-torn Russia, players not only have to manage scarce resources, but also their allegiances. While the core elements of RTS gameplay and survival management sim work well together, a large part of your enjoyment will depend on the balance of those two. For large stretches of gameplay, Last Train Home isn’t an RTS with management sim elements, but a Surival Management game with occasional RTS missions.
GameGrin - Bennett Perry - 9 / 10
Moral of the review, beware of copy-and-paste news stories and play Last Train Home unless you want a little faster action, you’re an opportunist, a cutthroat, or a Bolshevik.
GamesCreed - Kurtis Seid - 3.2 / 5
Last Train Home is great for those who want to maliciously plan everything else and manage a spreadsheet of resources and logistics. Things will be taken slowly, almost at a snail’s pace, to avoid roadblocks. Those who want to rush into action will likely quickly kill the entire Czechoslovakian Legion. This can easily accumulate with loading back dozens of hours if you can even figure out which save file that was.
NoobFeed - Michael VanDine - 95 / 100
While Last Train Home may be one of the best experiences of a neutral party in war story-wise, the gameplay and story also tell a haunting truth. You should play Last Train Home not just because it’s entertaining but because it holds the ability to tell the story of those who really lived through the conflict. It’s easy for ideals to be worth the civil wars that are waged, but so often do we forget the lives of those who were impacted outside of the conflict. Last Train Home is a wonderful look at that haunting reality.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun - Sin Vega - Unscored
An ambitious hybrid of RTS, management, and narrative history masterfully put together to represent a unique war story that easily smooths over some AI quirks.
SECTOR.sk - Branislav Kohút - Slovak - 9 / 10
Czech developers have brought a unique combination of genres that works great. The management train ride combined with military strategic missions, RPG development and survival elements is unique and extremely complex. In addition, the authors have captured well an unseen period and a little-known stage of Czechoslovak history.
Shacknews - Josh Broadwell - 9 / 10
Last Train Home might not be as deep as some management sims or as broad in scope as other RTS games. However, it combines the best of both styles with some smart and welcome improvements that give it a strong identity. Combine that with a unique story and brilliant presentation, and you’ve got yourself a strong candidate for one of the best in the genre.
The management side of the game can seem complex at first. Though it warns you that you can’t return to the area beforehand, I wish you could backtrack to previous stations to get anything you missed. The only bug I suffered was when I was proceeding to the next area of the story, and the game informed me I’d left two men behind and abandoned side quests. I reloaded the game several times and checked that I had no active side quests. The men were also happy and not actively working. It was frustrating as they were two of my best men.
The voice acting and visuals in the game were phenomenal and did a fantastic job of drawing you into the story. Overall, the game is great, and I would recommend it to any RTS fan.
Try Hard Guides - Erik Hodges - 8 / 10
Last Train Home is a heartwarming and deeply engrossing story of hardship and survival combined with a fun and challenging resource management game with a shocking amount of depth. While I wasn’t a fan of the real-time strategy segments, I would definitely recommend this game for everything else it has to offer.
WhatIfGaming - Hristijan Pavlovski - 8 / 10
Last Train Home is a challenging survival/tactical game that will push you to your limits and back. It’s a game that sells you an experience, which it unravels through its difficult yet satisfying gameplay as well as its expertly directed cutscenes. If you’re someone who enjoys a real challenge, then Last Train Home is a definite must-play.
This game is so perfectly up my alley but the demo ran like shit on my old desktop, might need to upgrade before pulling the trigger.