Survival crafting and base-building games are incredibly popular on Steam, with titles like Satisfactory, Subnautica, and Factorio leading the way. As this genre has grown, Steam has seen many new games inspired by these classics. The most successful ones usually offer a fresh take on the familiar combination of surviving, crafting items, and building a base.
Harpoon Games is developing ExoTrain, a new survival crafting game that looks to stand out with its unique train-based gameplay. Currently, it’s slated for release between July and September of 2026, according to its Steam page. If released on schedule, ExoTrain has the potential to be a top survival crafting game in 2026 and a strong competitor to titles like Subnautica 2.
ExoTrain’s Features at a Glance
- Survival combat against hostile alien wildlife
- Open-world exploration
- Mine resources while defending drills from enemies
- Crafting materials from gathered resources
- Upgrade the train as a home base
- Solo and Co-op play options
ExoTrain Lets Players Explore a Ruined Planet By Train
- View ExoTrain on Steam
In ExoTrain, you play as someone arriving on a ruined planet expecting to start a new job with Exoplanet Industries. Instead of a thriving colony, you find only crumbling remains and dangerous creatures. You’ll need to scavenge for resources and build a safe haven from scratch, much like the gameplay in Subnautica.
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The train is central to the experience in ExoTrain. It’s both your mobile home base and how you travel across the planet. Most of the time, you’ll see the game from an angled, overhead perspective. However, when you drive the train to new locations, the view changes to a bird’s-eye perspective. You can still move your character around inside the moving train and quickly access storage or upgrades, switching back to the angled view as needed.
Upgrading ExoTrain’s Titular Train is the Key to Survival
In ExoTrain, your train isn’t just how you get around – it’s essential for staying alive. You can add different parts to your train to help you craft better items, like a research lab, a weapon workshop, and extra storage. If you’ve played games like Satisfactory, you’ll understand how crucial it is to improve these features, as they unlock more advanced crafting options and allow you to progress further in the game.
Combat is an Important Aspect of ExoTrain’s Gameplay
Beyond exploring and building, ExoTrain features a robust combat system that’s more prominent than in typical games of this type. Battles are fought from an overhead, isometric view, similar to action RPGs like Diablo or Path of Exile, where players use a variety of skills to defeat enemies. The game also offers a good selection of weapons to suit different playstyles, including:
- Battle Axe
- Axe
- Spear
- Sword
- SMG
- Rifle
- Thermal Sniper Rifle
As a big fan of ExoTrain, I’m really enjoying how you can upgrade your armor and gear to get ready for fights. What’s cool is the Overclocking system – you go to an Overclocking Station and add modules to your equipment. These modules can give you some awesome boosts, like making your rifle hit harder or run cooler. It honestly feels a bit like an RPG, reminding me of how you can customize gear in Diablo 4 with its Tempering system, and it adds a really satisfying crafting element to the game.
ExoTrain Shares a Lot of Features with Games like Satisfactory and Subnautica
It’s not unusual for survival crafting games to include trains or combat. For example, Satisfactory uses trains for resource transport and features combat for gathering materials from creatures, while Subnautica requires vehicle upgrades, like the Cyclops submarine, to explore deeper areas. But ExoTrain really focuses on these elements, making them central to the gameplay.
I’m really getting into automation in games like Satisfactory, and ExoTrain takes that idea and adds a cool combat twist. In ExoTrain, setting up resource gathering is pretty automated – you can build mining drills right on the ore deposits. But here’s the thing: you can’t just set it and forget it! Because combat is a big part of the game, you have to protect those drills from enemies. Luckily, I can build defenses like auto-turrets to do a lot of the work for me, so I don’t have to constantly babysit everything. It’s a nice balance between building a factory and defending it.
Riding the Rails is Nice, But Builing a Permanent Base is Also Fun
While the main train in ExoTrain serves as a mobile base, players can also construct lasting buildings and facilities as they gather resources and unlock new technologies. Like games such as Subnautica and Satisfactory, building large-scale production centers and outposts around the planet will help players rebuild a lost colony and collect resources from the abandoned world.
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2026-03-28 14:05