I have an older cousin to thank and/or blame for my introduction to the Cthulhu Mythos by way of his copy of Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu TTRPG. It was inevitable I’d pick up on Lovecraft and his Mythos, and all the writers who contributed to it over the years. In some respects, it’s gratifying to see that Lovecraft’s works have gained the popular appeal they didn’t seem to catch when they first came out. A point which I tried very hard to keep in mind as I went through the early working form of RailGods of Hysterra. Unfortunately for my patience (my sanity is already pretty shaky), it might have managed to sour me on an entire genre of games going forward: the survival-crafter.
RailGods of Hysterra immediately goes meta-referential in its opening cinematic. The stars were right, the Old Ones came back, and the apocalypse destroyed the bulk of human civilization. However, some folks (including Lovecraft himself) managed to escape to the Dreamlands, learning how to handle magic and turning the normally amorphous shoggoths into train engines. Returning to Earth years later, the “Dreamers” find that pockets of civilization still hold out, but the Old Ones and their dominion over the Earth is just about absolute. Like any proper insurgency, the best thing to do is stay on the move and gather your strength. And as a recently returned Dreamer, it’s up to you and your friends to take the fight and tell Cthulhu, “Fghtahn you!”
From a visual perspective, RailGods of Hysterra makes decent use of Unreal Engine 5. It definitely captures the vibe of early 20th Century New England and deftly mixes in the sometimes monstrous elements of creatures from the Mythos. You have a good degree of customization to start for making your particular Dreamer look both period and genre appropriate. You have contextual indicators for AoE attacks from certain enemies which very easily inform you to get out of the way. On the other hand, certain text elements are rather cramped and difficult to read. Overall, it’s hard to argue that this is not a good looking game. The artistry is clear to see and a treat for fans of the Mythos.
Audio, on the other hand, is not quite as well developed. Aside from the opening cinematic and various creature noises, we don’t get a lot in the way of voice work. This is a crying shame because RailGods of Hysterra could use some good voices to back up their interesting character designs. Compounding this is the rather lackluster soundtrack. I get that in this universe, the Jazz Age probably never had a chance to happen, but that doesn’t mean that a similar genre (albeit with more dissonant and “eldritch” elements) couldn’t arise organically. And there had to be plenty of music (almost certainly in public domain by this point) dating to before the return of the Old Ones which could be used to set the mood. The generally good quality of the sound effects almost feels a slap in the face to the player. It’s as if the developers wanted to say, “See? We didn’t screw up the bangs and cracks!” while completely ignoring everything else.
The greatest failings in RailGods of Hysterra can be found in the gameplay. I should preface the following with the fact that I’m no stranger to the survival-crafter genre. And generally speaking, I enjoy such titles quite a bit, with hundreds of hours in Enshrouded and V Rising. Not quite as much as time in Return To Moria, but that’s been more recent. Subnautica, The Forest, Empyrion, The Planet Crafter – I’ve been there and done that. When it’s done right, there’s a sense of discovery and accomplishment. Yeah, you want to bring your buddies into the game, but at the same, you feel a thrill when you go out into the unknown and make your mark on the game world. So you can only imagine my distress when I started to actively despise the various systems in RailGods of Hysterra.
The crafting systems seem to suffer from an “information vacuum.” You can’t seem to reason out the progression of what raw materials lead to what tools or items outside of an immediate step (Raw food to Cooked food, for example). The blueprint system is kind of borked; I tried crafting an item and I ended up crafting copies of the blueprint instead of the item itself. Worse, there’s no hint or tooltip which lays out the potential upgrade path of the workbenches you use. Item quality seems to be an arbitrary distinction without any game impact. For example, I crafted some basic armor pieces, explored areas, came across pieces which seemed like they were upgrades, and I still managed to get my ass handed to me in combat.
This leads in to the next great failing. The combat system is by turns boring and deeply frustrating. The melee weapons are certainly better than nothing, but getting up close and personal with your violence is a good way to get your fool head busted. Why? Because enemies can still perform their attacks at the same time you’re performing yours. And frankly, their attacks seem to be a hell of a lot more effective than yours. Plus, they can take a punch (or blade, or spearpoint) a lot better than you can. Yes, there are weak enemies which you can mop pretty easily, but those fights tend to get boring very quickly. The same conditions also apply to ranged weapons and your “Dark Powers,” magic spells which definitely do more damage but also run on cooldowns which seem oddly inconsistent. Either you’re wiping out trash mobs quickly or you’re having to kite and circle strafe. Both get dull fast. The final insult was when I reached a quest boss, and got wrecked a dozen different times, one right after another, because the arena was unusually constrained and his attacks hit like a truck. To add insult to injury, you have to recover ALL of your gear, which depending on where you died can make for a very awkward opening when having to try and survive a seemingly unwinnable fight yet again. I can’t help but shake the suspicion that there’s a serious lack of balancing at play with regards to combat. It feels like the boss character I met was intended to be taken on by a full four-man crew instead of a single player. If that is the case, the situation’s a lot worse than just bad encounter design.
I’ve played good examples of survival-crafters, and I’ve played bad examples. And right now, RailGods of Hysterra is a very bad example. Despite being in Early Access, it has a “I’m still a demo!” feeling. For the first time in I don’t know how long, I’m genuinely contemplating abandoning an entire genre over one bad experience. As it stands now, RailGods of Hysterra is not anywhere close to leaving the station, and I’m not certain it will be anytime soon.
Axel reviewed RailGods of Hysterra on PC in Early Access with a provided review copy.
