Unrailed 2: Back on Track is essentially what you’d get if you combined the frantic multiplayer chaos of Overcooked, but instead of scrambling to prepare meals for a hungry (yet curiously invisible) customer base, you’re tasked with the horrifying task of laying railroad track down as a train approaches the end of the line with all the urgency of a jar of molasses on a cool fall evening.
No, the train doesn’t move very quickly, but it does spell your impending doom, so that’s something to consider before kicking back and taking your sweet time creating a track for it to travel along.
With a group of your friends, Unrailed 2 begins a cross-country adventure where you tame and settle the landscape to help aid your locomotive’s constant left-to-right progression. Using an axe, you can chop down trees.
Using a pickaxe (an axe of the pick variety; they’re different), you can carve out the cliffs and rock formations blocking your path. As expected, destroying these geographical features will yield resources that you can use to your advantage.
First, and most importantly, combining one wood and one stone on the workbench compartment will craft a section of railroad track. It is vital that you keep laying down track as often as possible, so maybe consider assigning one teammate to deforestation, one to mining, one to resource allocation, and one to clearing the impeding herds of wildlife.
Blocky wildlife, of course, because the cubic art style bleeds into every tiny detail of Unrailed‘s universe. The instinctual comparison would be to compare this visual style to Minecraft, but I actually see more of the original Bit.Trip Runner in the core of this title’s visuals.
Still, the presence of regular four-legged animals that behave like savage beasts brings into question why your team of bipedal animals isn’t grazing the plains themselves, but rather performing coordinated railroad engineering.
This is sort of a “why is Pluto just a regular dog if Mickey Mouse and friends can speak” type of issue that doesn’t matter in the long run, but has me asking questions regardless. But I digress…
If you come across a stream or pond, loose wood works perfectly as a bridge for both your track and your ragtag team of animalian engineers. The water features aren’t only a hindrance; fill up a bucket and cool off your overheating locomotive whenever it begins glowing red, or your adventure could meet an explosive ending.
If you have no friends (or, like me, your very, very real friend group are busy because of how real they are), the game offers a robot helper to fill the void and offer some support on your journey.
You can give commands as you please, but I find that the robot’s productivity is maximized when you assign it to railroads, because now when there are no railroads to place, it scours the map and crafts them itself, while you can simply focus on chopping away at a nearby forest.
The single-player companion is better than nothing, but Unrailed 2 is like a pan of cinnamon rolls — it’s best enjoyed with a friend. Or two, or three. And they’d better be your absolute closest friends with whom you’re certain you hold unbreakable bonds, because if you thought that operating the kitchen of Overcooked was like commanding an army during wartime, you ain’t seen nothing yet, sweetheart.
Once you finish a level, your endless journey reaches a fork in the road. In a brief moment to catch your breath and reflect, you may choose from a number of upgrades and new train cars with different purposes.
Creativity and thoughtful combinations lead to builds that can either help or hinder your progression. Put the right car behind your workbench, and you’ll be able to insert wood and stone into a self-operating track-building machine.
I’m still not sure how I did it, but at one point, I put the wrong car behind said machine, and it completely halted the buttery-smooth assembly line (and nearly fried the thinking circuits of my robotic servant).
I played this demo on my Switch 2 and ran into no performance hiccups, though the demo is very short and I was able to clear through it within just half an hour of playtime. Couch coop is the best way to enjoy this game, so the upcoming console releases are perfect.
Unrailed 2 has been available on Steam since November of 2025, but is hitting full release on PC alongside Switch, Switch 2, and PlayStation 5 on June 11, 2026.
