Last Train Home

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.

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.

So the combat is good, the squad management is good, and setting an ambush with a handful of troops and watching it play out perfectly is the real deal…but that’s not even the point. The point is herding your Czechs through the Russian Revolution, carefully leveling them up and picking their jobs, deciding what they do, hoping they don’t die, and cringing when they do because not only did you lose your best medic, you lost your best train fixer and now everyone’s depressed and the train’s broken again. And that’s what games are all about: Everything being depressing and broken while you’re sur...

Historical storytelling in a survival RTS set during the Russian Civil War.

For RTS players looking for their next fix, this is a solid recommendation. It certainly doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it can serviceably live up to expectations and it does manage to feel unique in certain ways, even if many of those ways are purely superficial. It certainly lays a foundation that Ashborne will hopefully be building on in the future, whether with further detailed RTS or more fascinating Czechoslovak tales that the world needs to know.