Railway Empire

Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.

Very Positive · 83%Very Positive · 83%2018

$29.99

US Steam price, checked 5 h ago

The verdict

A pretty, relaxing railroad tycoon with deep logistics and lots of DLC content, but clunky UI, awkward track laying and signals, and annoying AI rivals frustrate many. Skip if you dislike fiddly micromanagement.

Great for

Train fans and Railroad Tycoon veterans who enjoy slow logistics planning and sandbox building

Main risk

Fighting the clunky UI, track laying and signals instead of enjoying the game

What players love

Satisfying logistics and route planning

Mentioned in ~1 in 6 positive reviews

“The micromanagment level can be as deep as you like, but the automatic functions are also adequate and effective.”
Steam review · 44.5 h played ↗

“You don't just lay rails, you build complex logistics chains, watch the signals, grow cities and crush competitors.”
Steam review · translated · 42.4 h played ↗

“It's like a huge box of Legos.”
Steam review · 641.4 h played ↗

Beautiful visuals, detailed trains and ride-along cam

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 positive reviews

“The visuals are stunning, with detailed landscapes and trains that really bring the era to life.”
Steam review · 169.2 h played ↗

“the ability to ride along the rails in the trains with multiple camera angles available, making it more immersive.”
Steam review · 10.2 h played ↗

“and the view from the locomotive simply won me over”
Steam review · translated · 3.6 h played ↗

Relaxing, addictive, great time sink

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 positive reviews

“Charming, simplistic, game. Not a detailed simulator, but a relaxing way to spend your time.”
Steam review · 181.2 h played ↗

“it's more strategy and planning without the need to think and act fast as in shooter type games. I'd almost say it's almost relaxing to play.”
Steam review · 402.1 h played ↗

“A time-killer game, a sandbox game.”
Steam review · translated · 27.9 h played ↗

Lots of content, DLC regions and replayability

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 positive reviews

“with the available DLC you can play this game forever!”
Steam review · 1391.9 h played ↗

“love the sandbox and different terrain type maps”
Steam review · 1247.7 h played ↗

Worthy successor to Railroad Tycoon

Mentioned in ~1 in 9 positive reviews

“Railway Empire is hands down the best of all of them.”
Steam review · 117.7 h played ↗

“this is its worthy heir nowadays”
Steam review · 45.9 h played ↗

“a worthy spiritual successor to a classic”
Steam review · 441.6 h played ↗

Flexible difficulty and sandbox options

Mentioned in ~1 in 13 positive reviews

“So all of my "problems" disappeared, when I learned to know the game.”
Steam review · 223.5 h played ↗

“the game has many pluses and is quite varied in difficulty settings”
Steam review · translated · 6.5 h played ↗

What players complain about

Clunky, unintuitive UI

Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews

“the UI/UX is some of the worst I’ve ever experienced. Every simple thing feel unnecessarily confusing.”
Steam review · 0.9 h played ↗

“But the inconvenient interface ruins the game most. We mostly fight it rather than economic difficulties.”
Steam review · translated · 4.6 h played ↗

“This is the absolute worst UI I have EVER seen.”
Steam review · 0.8 h played ↗

Finicky track laying and junctions

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews

“The track laying sucks. It kills the game.”
Steam review · 53.3 h played ↗

“instead of playing and building chains, you fight the track-building system, where rails keep refusing to connect”
Steam review · translated · 10.7 h played ↗

“Trying to get tracks close together can be an absolute nightmare as they constantly get flagged as unplaceable.”
Steam review · 10.7 h played ↗

Broken or confusing signals and train gridlock

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews

“"Train is waiting for a clear route" is the message that breaks this game.”
Steam review · 1.7 h played ↗

“Even if you do everything as in the tutorial, it DOESN'T WORK.”
Steam review · translated · 32 h played ↗

“make it freakin' impossible to lay down a functioning signal system”
Steam review · 27.1 h played ↗

AI competitors cheat and annoy

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews

“The A.I cheats, They can have 100+ train and not be affected by maintanence.”
Steam review · 44.9 h played ↗

“my competitors have 2-3 times the quantity of trains running because they don't have to worry about collisions”
Steam review · 17.7 h played ↗

“The AI cheats shamelessly.”
Steam review · translated · 21.6 h played ↗

Train and line management is tedious

Mentioned in ~1 in 6 negative reviews

“For starters, every single train has their own line.”
Steam review · 3.4 h played ↗

“to have 2 trains do the same thing you have to remake the route from scratch.”
Steam review · 2 h played ↗

Poor tutorial and punishing scenarios

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews

“Worst tutorial I've seen in a game, especially one this complicated.”
Steam review · 1.1 h played ↗

“The biggest problem is the way the tutorial is set up.”
Steam review · 30.9 h played ↗

“You get stuck on chapter 4 because the passengers to move from city A to B just don't spawn in the needed quantity.”
Steam review · translated · 31.1 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Playable

Minimum

OSWindows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (64bit versions)

ProcessorIntel Core i5 750 @ 2.6 GHz or AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.2 GHz

Memory4 GB RAM

GraphicsnVidia GeForce GTX460 or AMD Radeon HD5870 (1024MB VRAM with Shader Model 5.0)

Storage7 GB available space

Recommended

OSWindows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 or Windows 10(64bit versions)

ProcessorIntel Core i5 2400s @ 2.5 GHz or AMD FX 4100 @ 3.6

Memory8 GB RAM

GraphicsnVidia GeForce GTX 680 or AMD Radeon HD7970 or better (2048MB VRAM or more, with Shader Model 5.0)

Storage7 GB available space

OSWindows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (64bit versions)

ProcessorIntel Core i5 750 @ 2.6 GHz or AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.2 GHz

Memory4 GB RAM

GraphicsnVidia GeForce GTX460 or AMD Radeon HD5870 (1024MB VRAM with Shader Model 5.0)

Storage7 GB available space

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