Islands & Trains Review — And Train*

I play a wholly unnecessary amount of League of Legends, a game that on its best days can still manage to get under your skin and stress you out. It is therefore something of a relief that my job, which I’m incredibly lucky to have, drops the occasional relaxation-focused game on my desk. It’s at these times that I’m reminded that not every game has to be about winning, skill expression, or intense battles, and that sometimes there’s no better way to spend your afternoon than engaging in something that stimulates your brain with gentle, relaxing, yet attention-grabbing activities that don’t require a rush of adrenaline to enjoy. These kinds of experiences are rare but welcome, and they serve as a good reminder that games, like all forms of art, can serve more than just one emotional purpose.

Enter Islands & Trains.

Much of what you can expect from Islands & Trains is told to you by the game’s title; Islands & Trains is a cozy sandbox level builder where you fill an endless ocean with islands and then populate said islands with little towns, castles, and above all else, trains. It’s a game built in the energy of train modelers, who build intricate and endlessly impressive dioramas of landscapes and towns for their model trains to ride through. Being a Warhammer painter, I can appreciate what I personally consider to be the grandfather of my hobby, which Islands & Trains does a pretty good job of emulating. There’s something incredibly charming about that shared creative space between hobbies, and this game taps into it well. The aesthetic and process of slowly building something piece by piece can be wonderfully meditative, and the game leans into that feeling with confidence.

The game’s setup is remarkably simple. You’re given the ability to shape terrain block by block and a fairly large library of pieces to place upon your self-made grid. These pieces vary from the functional to the decorative, including a variety of train tracks and little buildings, farms, and nature props to make your own diorama vibrant and full of life. The ultimate goal is to, of course, make intricate and functional train tracks that you then place your train in to drive around, with the speed fully determined by you. There’s no score to chase or timer to beat; just you, your tools, and your imagination. It’s a welcome change of pace from the competitiveness baked into so many games these days.

I did say train, singular. Despite being called Islands & Trains, you’re actually only limited to one train per map, something that fans of the game have been quick to point out in the game’s Steam reviews. As cozy as Islands & Trains is, this small fact is just one thread that begins to unravel a host of missing features that can make the game feel unfinished. You can’t help but imagine how much more dynamic or satisfying your creations would feel with multiple trains crisscrossing paths or interacting with each other. The single train limitation doesn’t ruin the experience, but it definitely feels like a compromise, or at least an indication of a game that still has room to grow.

In addition to your singular train, the rail building is fairly limited due to the fact that not every piece can be mirrored. When it comes to some pieces, such as switches, this can be incredibly limiting to your build and require a fair amount of planning in order to accomplish the track you want to build. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it often results in frustration when your creative vision runs up against the technical limitations of the game’s toolset. The game could also use a variety of additions in this area, especially ones that introduce a bit of automation to the process. Stoplights that bring your train to a halt could be particularly fun to play around with, especially if the developers get around to including multiple trains.

I also found it rather disappointing that many of the decorative pieces in your hobbyist’s arsenal are not functional with the train tracks themselves. Particularly, pieces with arches, such as castle gates, cannot have train tracks built underneath, which feels like an oversight by the developers.

You are either going to love or hate the game’s grid-based, block-by-block building system. It’s not as intuitive as, say, a game that allows you to place terrain pieces via brushes or mold the land with grow or shrink tools. It doesn’t really want to be that, either, but the block-by-block placement can grow tedious, especially when certain camera angles cause your land-filling attempts to come up with gaps and pitfalls. This wouldn’t be much of a problem if the game came with an undo button, something that lets you remove the last couple of blocks placed or change your last action without having to manually delete everything. This desperately needed feature is unfortunately not present, but despite this, I found myself continuously trying to do so throughout my playthrough. The muscle memory for such a feature is so ingrained from other building games that its absence is almost jarring.

Islands & Trains doesn’t want to be the most complex or accurate train simulator. It also doesn’t want to be the most advanced level designer on the market, withholding both intricate train designing tools as well as advanced terrain molding from the player. Instead, it just wants to be a cozy, simple little game about designing cute train tracks on your own across a variety of different levels. Because of that, the game is hard to criticize, because it certainly gets that down. Its goals are modest, and it achieves them with a reasonable degree of polish. However, play it enough and you’ll find yourself wanting for some more, so here’s hoping the developers continue adding to it. If not, Islands & Trains is certainly not the worst thing you can spend $7 on, and does its job of relaxing the player very well.

Try Hard Guides was provided a Steam code for this PC review of Islands & Trains. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Islands & Trains is available on Steam.