Running Through Outlaw Territory On The Bounty Train

Have you ever wanted to take control of your late father’s railroad company, exploring 19th century America while attempting to restore your company to former glory? If managing rolling stock, delivering cargo, transporting passengers and fighting off natives and bandits sounds like your thing, then the Early Access release of Bounty Train might be for you.

You begin in the city of Portland, with a modest locomotive and just a couple of carriages for transporting cargo and passengers. You quickly learn that your father’s former partners took control of the company after his death, and it’s up to you to regain control from them. How you do that though, is entirely up to you.

Before I left the city, I bought some resources that I knew I could sell for a profit in Boston, and also made sure to recruit a few gentlemen that looked like they could take care of anything that was thrown at us along the journey. Sure enough, some bandits thought they liked the look of the cargo I was carrying and attempted to rob the train.

The combat is very similar to that of Faster Than Light, and that’s not a bad thing. Provided one of your crew is positioned in the locomotive and shoveling coal, you’ll have access to basic train controls to affect your speed, while the rest of your gang try their best to defend the train. You can move each crew member to a particular location, such as a vantage point from a carriage where they can shoot at the bandits riding alongside on horseback. Engaging a bandit is easy enough, you just select your crew member and click on who or what you want them to target. If necessary, they’ll move around the train so that they have a clear firing line.

Your crew also need to be ready to react in case one an enemy jumps aboard your train, or a well-thrown stick of dynamite causes a fire to break out in one of your wagons, which then needs to be extinguished. Certain crew members will be better suited to particular tasks, so one might be a proficient long range shooter, while another is handy manning the cannon, or maybe they’re more suited to putting out fires and repairing your train while on the move. The combat certainly needs improvement and it’s devilishly hard, but it’s fairly easy to pick up what’s what and is enjoyable if you like micro-management.

If you make it through the attack unscathed, or at least with as much cargo and crew as you can, you can sell your goods, mend your train and heal your crew at the next city you come to. You can then turn your eye to upgrading their specialised abilities via a perk system or save up to buy faster locomotives or bigger carriages that let you carry more cargo or more people. Then again, armoured carriages might come in handy to break through a bandit blockade, thanks to their extra firepower.

Time progresses as you move from city to city, and you will encounter historical events that can have an impact on your story, such as the civil war. You can try to use these events to your advantage, as certain situations such as famine or disease will push up prices in one city, making it easy to cash in on. Bringing in a steady stream of cash will certainly help you expand and complete quests. The more you explore, the more people you will come across, including family members scattered across the country, who you can attempt to use to gain influence among various factions as you continue to try and retake your father’s company.

There’s some parts of Bounty Train which simply need more work, and you can get the sense that the developers have bitten off a bit more than they can chew. The game seems to try to do a bit of everything, with trading, combat and adventure aspects all rolled into one, and while they could come together quite nicely once the game exits Early Access, some parts can feel a bit bare and the combat can be frustratingly difficult. Yet, there’s a decent amount of content already, and the game will be polished and see new features added over the coming months, which I will certainly be looking forward to.