Defend the train to hell
Hell has frozen over and only you can protect the final burning pyre from the forces of heaven. Monster Train is a strategic roguelike deck building game where you defend multiple vertical battlegrounds across three play fields. You build a deck from over 220 cards, recruit powerful units, upgrade your champion, and mix and match upgrades to open up new roads to victory. Choose your route carefully, because different locations give different benefits like passive bonuses or the chance to duplicate any card in your deck. With five clans to choose from, each with its own unique gameplay, you pick a primary and supporting clan to gain access to cards from both. No playthrough is ever the same.
Play together
Monster Train includes real time competitive multiplayer through the Hell Rush mode, where eight players compete in a frantic contest. Each player gets the same resources and opponents to create a level playing field, and with the clock ticking it tests who can make the best decisions under pressure. There is also a Daily Challenge with gameplay mutators where you can compete globally and against friends, climbing the leaderboards with a skill-focused scoring system. If you want to set up something specific, the Custom Challenge mode lets you design your own unique challenge and share it with friends, each with its own leaderboard.
Before you start
Monster Train is tagged as difficult, so expect a challenge as you learn the systems. The game uses procedural generation and choices matter mechanics, so runs differ each time. You can unlock 10 levels for each of the 5 monster clans, bringing new cards to your deck, and upgrade your clan specific champion multiple times. There are 25 covenant difficulty levels, more than 21 unique random events, and you can upgrade any card twice. Mod support is available through Steam Workshop. The Friends & Foes update adds new champions, bosses, cards, and artifacts, plus a personal run records page, an enemy wave counter in battle, and a preview of the ring 3 and ring 6 bosses at the start of a run. The Wild Mutations update adds 35 new mutators and new difficulty settings for experienced players.