Getting Started with Unrailed!
Unrailed! is a cooperative railroad construction game for up to four players who chop wood, mine iron, craft rails, and lay them in front of a moving train. Your train starts with an engine plus three wagons, a Crafter, a Storage wagon, and a Tank wagon, and the run ends the moment the train reaches track that is not there. Drop your resources into Storage and never the Crafter, start in Endless mode on Easy, and remember the train speeds up the further ahead you lay track, so a short line buys you time.
Unrailed! is a cooperative railroad construction game developed by Indoor Astronaut and published by Daedalic Entertainment, with bilibili as co-publisher in China. You and up to three other players chop wood, mine iron, craft track pieces, and lay them in front of a moving train before it runs out of rails and derails. The concept is simple. The execution is pure chaos.
The game entered Early Access on Steam on September 9, 2019, and launched its full release on September 23, 2020. It supports Windows, macOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One (the Xbox port launched on October 27, 2020), plus the Epic Games Store. Both local and online co-op support up to four players.
Crossplay arrived in stages, not at launch. Steam and Switch players could play together from November 23, 2020, and the platform list grew from there. It is also a mode you opt into: a Cross-Platform checkbox added in November 2022 restarts the game into a crossplay compatibility mode instead of running transparently in the background.
Unrailed! is the original game. Unrailed 2: Back on Track is a separate sequel with different mechanics, progression systems, and content. This guide covers only the original Unrailed! released in 2020.
How the Game Works
You start each level with a train sitting on a short section of track. The train has an engine and three default wagons: a Crafter, a Storage wagon, and a Tank wagon. After a brief countdown, the train starts moving. If it reaches the end of the track with no rails ahead, it derails and the run ends.
Here is the basic loop:
- Chop trees with your axe to collect wood. Mine rocks with your pickaxe to collect iron.
- Carry resources to the Storage wagon. The Crafter pulls from Storage automatically and forges rails.
- Take the finished rails off the Crafter and place them on the ground ahead of the train.
- Keep the engine cool. Fill the bucket with water and pour it on the engine or the Tank wagon before it overheats and catches fire.
- Reach the station at the end of the level. Spend bolts on wagon upgrades or new wagons.
- Repeat across increasingly difficult biomes until the train derails or you reach the Final Biome.
:::warning Resources go to Storage, not the Crafter This trips up almost everyone, because the Crafter is the wagon that visibly makes track. You never load the Crafter. You drop wood and iron into the Storage wagon, Storage feeds the Crafter automatically, and the finished rails stack up on the Crafter for you to collect. Storage is the input end of the chain, not the overflow bin. :::
How Fast the Train Moves
The train is not on a fixed schedule, and this is the most useful thing you can learn early. Its actual speed depends on how many tracks you have laid ahead of it:
| Tracks ahead of the train | Effect on speed |
|---|---|
| 3 or fewer | Slowest. Speedometer speed minus 0.05 m/s. |
| About 6.7 | Exactly the speedometer speed. |
| More than 25 | Fastest. Speedometer speed plus 0.25 m/s. |
That is a 0.30 m/s spread you control directly. Racing far ahead with track does not buy you a buffer, it makes the train chase you faster. When you need time, keep the line short and build loops.
The speedometer itself also rises every time you reach or skip a station, and it scales with player count, so a four-player run starts faster than a two-player run in the same biome.
Controls and Tools
There are three tools, and the whole team shares one set of them. The axe, pickaxe and bucket spawn on the map at the start of each level. They are not personal equipment, so if one player is holding the axe, nobody else can chop. Tool management is core to the gameplay.
Tools tick audibly when they are about to be lost off the edge of the screen, and any tool you lose is returned to you when the train reaches the next station.
Basic Controls
| Action | Default Binding |
|---|---|
| Move | WASD or arrow keys, or left stick |
| Pick up / place | Space (or right Ctrl), or the A button |
| Dash | Left Shift, or the B button |
| Ping tool | Q or left click, or right stick click |
| Emoji wheel | Ctrl or E, or the shoulder triggers |
There is no drop button. Pick up and place are the same input, so you put something down by pressing the same key that picked it up.
The dash does far more than look good. It is how you drink from the Milk wagon, how you charge and fire the Brake wagon, how you spin the Slot Machine, and it is the subject of two station missions. Dashing into a teammate makes them drop whatever they are carrying.
The Tools
| Tool | Function |
|---|---|
| Axe | Chops trees into wood. Required for clearing forested paths. |
| Pickaxe | Mines rocks into iron. Required for clearing rocky terrain. |
| Bucket | Carries water. Cools the engine or Tank, melts snow you walk over, and becomes a portable air bubble in Space and on Mars. |
Your hands hold either a tool or resources, never both. To chop a tree you set down whatever you are carrying and pick up the axe, and to run wood to Storage you set the axe down again. That swap is the tax on every single trip, and doing it efficiently is what separates functioning teams from trainwrecks.
Resources and Crafting
Two wagons share this job. Storage holds your raw wood and iron. The Crafter draws from Storage and forges rails, which then sit on the Crafter waiting to be collected.
Resource Chain
| Step | What Happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Gather | Chop a tree for wood or mine a rock for iron. You carry up to three at a time. |
| 2. Deliver | Carry the resources to the Storage wagon and drop them in. |
| 3. Craft | The Crafter pulls from Storage on its own and forges rails, depleting the stock as it goes. |
| 4. Place | Take a rail off the Crafter and place it on the ground in front of the train. |
- The Crafter needs both wood and iron. Delivering ten wood and zero iron produces nothing.
- Track pieces are straight by default. They automatically curve when placed adjacent to an existing track at an angle.
- The Crafter stops forging when its own rail stack is full, so a backlog of uncollected rails halts production even with Storage full.
- A Level 1 Storage holds three of each resource, and a Level 1 Crafter takes 3.2 seconds per rail and stacks three. Both are the cheapest upgrades in the game.
:::note The game calls the gray resource iron You mine it out of rocks, so "stone" is the natural word for it and the wiki uses both. In wagon tooltips and mission text it is iron, which matters once you own a wagon that has to be fed with it. :::
Track Repositioning
You can only lift track from the end of the line inward, never from the middle, so recovery always works backward. Hold the pick-up button (Space) on the last connected track, then hold Dash and walk back along the rails to sweep up the ones behind it. This is the emergency move when you route the train into a dead end or an unbreakable obstacle.
No source puts a fixed cap on how many you can recover in one sweep, so treat it as "as many as you can gather before the train arrives" and not a set number.
Bridge Construction
Water crossings and gaps require bridges. In the Plains, Desert, and Snow biomes, bridges are built with wood. In the Lava biome and beyond, wood incinerates on contact with lava, so bridges must be built entirely from stone. A team that arrives in Lava with a full Storage wagon of wood and no stone reserves will derail at the first lava flow.
Plan your resource balance around bridge materials before entering a new biome. The shift from wood bridges to stone bridges in Lava catches unprepared teams every time.
Resource Balance
Keep your wood and iron supply roughly even. A common beginner mistake is having three players chopping trees while nobody mines rock. Storage runs dry on one side, the Crafter stalls, rails stop appearing, and the train derails.
Train Maintenance
The train engine heats up as it moves. An overheat bar fills gradually. If it maxes out, the engine catches fire, and fire spreads down the train wagon by wagon.
How to prevent fires:
- Find a water source (lake, river, or puddle) near the track.
- Pick up the bucket.
- Walk to the water source and fill the bucket.
- Walk back and pour the water on the engine or on the Tank wagon. Either works.
- Repeat before the heat bar fills again.
In the early biomes, cooling duty is light. One player can handle it alongside other tasks. In later biomes the engine overheats faster and water gets harder to reach, and dedicated cooling becomes essential.
The Heat Capacity Rule
Every wagon except the Tank carries a hidden heat capacity of 15 seconds. Once a neighboring wagon has burned for that long, the fire jumps. The engine gets 30 seconds, extended further by your Tank level.
| Situation | Time before it catches |
|---|---|
| Wagon burning on one side | 15 seconds |
| Wagon burning on both sides | 7.5 seconds |
| Engine, Level 1 Tank | 30 seconds, plus 30 from the Tank |
:::warning Putting the fire out does not reset the clock This is the part that kills runs. The heat capacity is cumulative and does not reset when you extinguish a fire. Let the engine burn for 10 seconds, put it out, then let it burn again, and the next wagon catches after 5 seconds, not 15. Only rain or reaching the shop clears the accumulated heat on every wagon. Since rain falls in the Plains and nowhere else, from the Desert onward the only reset you get is the station. :::
Environmental Threats
Each biome introduces hostile creatures that actively sabotage your operation. They are not just obstacles - they will ruin your run if ignored. There are six, not four.
| Creature | Biome | Behavior |
|---|---|---|
| Bandits | Plains | Steal dropped resources and throw them off the map. Kill them with the axe, pickaxe, or dynamite. You can also lure one away by looking directly at it. |
| Outlaws | Desert | Steal resources like Bandits, but can also pick up placed tracks, causing sudden derailments. |
| Yetis | Snow | Ground smash with an area of effect that makes everyone nearby drop what they are holding. |
| Ghosts | Lava | Possess a player and mirror their movement controls. The ghost is consumed doing it and the effect wears off on its own. |
| Lava Blobs | Lava | Attach themselves to your engine or wagons and set them on fire. Extinguish with the water bucket. Also milkable. |
| Blowfish | Underwater | Swim at you, inflate, and detonate like a stick of dynamite. Also milkable. |
:::warning The Lava Blob is the reason your engine keeps catching fire It is easy to read the blob as a friendly milk source, because it is one. It is also the thing igniting your train, in the one biome where the only water comes from geysers. Deal with it before you try to milk it. :::
Separately from possession, the Lava biome tilts and flips the whole screen for everyone. Turning on the motion sickness option in settings replaces that flip with reversed controls. It is one or the other, not a stack you can partly disable.
The Station
Each level ends at a station. When the train reaches the station, the level is complete and you enter the upgrade phase.
What Happens at the Station
- Earn bolts. Bolts are the currency for upgrades.
- Buy upgrades. Spend bolts to upgrade existing wagons or purchase new ones. The shop offers you a choice of three wagons.
- Choose your engine. A new engine costs 4 bolts, moves you to the next biome, adds a wagon slot, widens the engine's night-time light radius, and resets the train speed.
You do not pick a route at the station. Your only choice is station or no station: build to the station on the right and you enter the shop, or build to the map border instead, in which case the station vanishes and the next section flies in. Either way the train speeds up.
Bolts
You can earn up to three bolts per section in Endless, from three sources:
| Source | Detail |
|---|---|
| The map bolt | One hidden somewhere in the section, often floating where you need a short detour bridge to reach it. |
| The station mission | One bolt for completing it. |
| Reaching the station | One bolt for connecting. |
Special bolts (orange) appear once per biome in the third section and are worth two regular bolts each. You need them to buy the final engine.
Map bolts are placed by the map seed instead of being randomly rolled at runtime, so a given seed always hides them in the same spots. That is not the same as fixed, learnable positions across different runs, and the community calls them hidden bolts for a reason.
Do not skip bolts on the ground. They are easy to miss in the chaos of track-laying, but every bolt counts when you are one short of an upgrade at the next station. Build short detour bridges to reach floating bolts when time permits.
The Default Wagons
Your train starts with three wagons that cannot be removed:
| Wagon | Function | Key Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Crafter | Forges rails from the wood and iron in Storage, and holds the finished rails. | 3.2s per rail at Level 1, 0.8s at Level 3. Upgrades cost 1 then 2 bolts. |
| Storage | Holds raw wood and iron and feeds the Crafter. | Three of each resource at Level 1. Upgrades cost 1 then 2 bolts. |
| Tank | Stores water for cooling, and supplies breathable air in Space and on Mars. | Level 1 buys the engine 30 extra seconds before it overheats. |
These three wagons form the backbone of every run, and Crafter and Storage are the two cheapest upgrades in the game at one bolt each, so they come first.
:::tip Swap the Crafter forward at the first station The default order puts the Crafter at the back of the train, which is the worst place for the wagon you collect rails from. Reordering is free, so at your first station pick up the Crafter and drop it where the Tank is. You can cool the train from either the engine or the Tank, so moving the Tank to the far end costs you nothing and puts your rails where you need them. Record-distance runs all do this. :::
Difficulty Modes
Unrailed! offers five difficulty levels. They change two things: how sparse resources are, and how much indestructible black rock the map generates. They do not change train speed, and they do not make enemies spawn more often or behave more aggressively.
| Difficulty | Effect |
|---|---|
| Kids | Same map generation as Easy, but checkpoints are forced on and you get one at every station. Endless mode only. |
| Easy | A clear path to the next station. You still bridge water occasionally, especially in Lava and Space. |
| Medium | No obvious path any more, so you clear rocks and trees to make one. The same amount of indestructible rock as Easy. |
| Hard | Like Medium but with more black rock. Clear ground is scarce and bottlenecks are common. |
| Extreme | A pinch on every single level, and the alternative route is usually a pinch too. Clear ground exists mostly around stations. |
A pinch is a gap so narrow the train fills it, leaving you unable to walk alongside your own train. That is what makes the high difficulties hard, and not hazard density.
Unrailed! is a rogue-like at heart, and derailing means losing the run. Checkpoints are an option you enable, not automatic. With them on, every difficulty except Kids autosaves at the first station of each new biome, and Kids autosaves at every station. Since April 2021 that last checkpoint also appears as an AUTOSAVE entry that survives being loaded, though there is only one such slot and starting a new checkpoint run overwrites it. A manual save made mid-biome is still strictly single use and is deleted the moment you load it. Note that runs with checkpoints enabled do not appear on the online leaderboards.
Cross-Platform Communication
Unrailed! has no text chat and no voice chat at all, in public or private lobbies. All in-game signaling runs through an emoji wheel and a separate ping tool. No source states why the game shipped without chat, so treat any explanation you read as speculation.
How communication works:
- Open the emoji wheel with Ctrl or E, or the shoulder triggers. It has three pages, switched with Space on keyboard or right stick click on a controller. Use it to signal resource needs and to command the AI bot.
- Use the separate ping tool (Q, left click, or right stick click) to mark a spot on the map. You can place a single dot or a path of up to four waypoints, and that is how you show the bot where to work.
- For voice coordination, use external platforms like Discord.
- To create private cross-platform lobbies, share a 5-character Session ID code with friends.
Map Seeds
The game uses deterministic procedural generation. Players can input specific alphanumeric seeds to guarantee map layouts. The seed encodes difficulty and game mode information, making it a tool used heavily by the speedrunning community for practicing specific layouts and sharing high-score attempts.
Your First Run
- Start in Endless mode on Easy. It is the core experience and teaches you the mechanics through escalating difficulty.
- Divide tasks immediately. At minimum, one player gathers and delivers resources while the other lays track and manages the engine. With four players, assign specific roles (see the Co-op and Strategy Guide).
- Clear a wide path. Do not just chop the trees directly in front of the train. Clear a corridor two to three tiles wide so you have room to maneuver and lay track without getting blocked.
- Keep tracks straight. Straight tracks use fewer pieces than winding paths. Only curve when you must dodge an obstacle you cannot clear in time.
- Watch the engine. Designate someone to check the overheat bar every few seconds. A fire in the first biome is embarrassing and avoidable.
- Do not panic at the countdown. The train sits still for a full 15 seconds at the start of every level. With the 1.5m of track you begin with, that gives you 45 seconds before a crash on the first level. Use it to pre-gather resources and lay the first few rails.
- Watch for Bandits. Even in the Plains, Bandits steal dropped resources. Kill them with the axe, pickaxe, or dynamite.
- Expect to derail. Your first dozen runs will end in spectacular failure. Every crash teaches you something about resource timing, path planning, or communication. That knowledge carries forward.
:::info Buying an engine slows the train down The speedometer climbs as you clear sections, but a new engine resets it to the next biome's starting speed. Base speeds do creep up biome to biome, and only slightly. So the engine is not a threat to brace for, it is the brake you reach for: the advice from top players is to hold off on buying one until the train is going faster than your team can keep up with, then buy it. Entering the Underwater mineshaft resets the speedometer too. :::
Game Modes
Unrailed! offers several ways to play:
| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Endless | The core mode. Progress through biomes, upgrade your train, and survive as long as possible. Bolts exist here and in Sandbox only. |
| Quick | A single-map sprint to the next station. Your train gets one random extra wagon, and an upgrade crate on the map can be dropped onto any wagon mid-game. |
| Versus | 2v2 on identical maps, less than half normal width so both sides fit on one screen. Win by connecting first, or by surviving longer. |
| Sandbox | Start in a configuration station and set your wagons, engine and train speed. Everything on offer is limited to what you have already seen in a real run. |
| Time | Twenty minutes to build as far as you can. Boxes replace bolts, the shop is closed, and missions are the only source of new wagons. |
Time mode is a genuinely different game, not a timed Endless. Your mining speed ramps from 100% to 250% as the clock runs down. Boxes take a wagon straight from Level 1 to Level 3 and then one level at a time up to Level 8, well past the Level 3 ceiling Endless imposes, and Superchargers stack on top of that for Level 9 or 10. The train caps at 11 wagons. Three of the six biomes are picked by the seed, with Space locked to the third section or later and Mars to the fifth. It also runs weekly challenges with their own leaderboards. It arrived in April 2021 and left beta in March 2023.
:::warning Sandbox cannot teach you a biome you have not reached Sandbox only offers engines and wagons you have already encountered in a real run, and the biome follows from the engine you pick. A brand-new player therefore gets the Plains and the three starting wagons, and nothing else. It is a good place to rehearse the controls at a slow train speed, but you cannot use it to practice Snow before you have survived to Snow. :::
Achievements are not blanket-disabled in Sandbox. What is true is narrower: the 15 distance achievements and the 4 track-length achievements say "in endless mode" in their own descriptions, so those will not unlock anywhere else. Bolts do exist in Sandbox, and the Underwater biome is reachable in Endless and Sandbox only.
There is also a seasonal Spooky mode that returns for Halloween, hosted through a local or Time lobby.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you make track pieces in Unrailed?
Chop a tree for wood and mine a rock for iron, then carry them to the Storage wagon, not the Crafter. Storage feeds the Crafter automatically and the finished rails stack up on the Crafter for you to collect. The Crafter needs both resources, so delivering ten wood and zero iron produces nothing.
How do you stop the train from catching fire?
Fill the bucket at a lake, river, or puddle and pour it on the engine or the Tank wagon before the overheat bar fills. Every wagon except the Tank has a hidden 15-second heat capacity and the engine has 30, but that counter is cumulative and does not reset when you put a fire out. Only rain, which falls in the Plains alone, or reaching the shop clears it.
Can you save your progress in Unrailed?
Checkpoints are an option you switch on, not something automatic. With them enabled you get an autosave at the first station of each new biome, and Kids mode instead autosaves at every station. Since April 2021 that checkpoint also survives being loaded, though there is only one slot for it. A manual save made mid-biome is still single use and is deleted the moment you load it.
Does Unrailed have crossplay and voice chat?
There is no text chat or voice chat anywhere in Unrailed!, private lobbies included, so all in-game signaling runs through a three-page emoji wheel and a separate ping tool. Crossplay covers Steam, Epic, Switch, PlayStation and Xbox, but it arrived in stages from November 2020 instead of at launch and you opt into it with a checkbox that restarts the game. Share a 5-character Session ID for a private lobby and use Discord for voice.
What mode should new players start with?
Start in Endless mode on Easy, since it is the core experience and teaches the mechanics through escalating difficulty. Sandbox lets you rehearse the controls at a slow train speed, but it only offers engines and wagons you have already seen in a real run, so it cannot teach you a biome you have not reached yet.
What to Read Next
These guides cover every system in depth:
- Wagons and Upgrades. All sixteen wagons, the Milk Wagon animal ecology, upgrade tiers, bolt economy, engine progression, and recommended upgrade paths.
- Biomes and Progression. All eight biomes including the Underwater detour, with hazard breakdowns and survival strategies.
- Co-op and Strategy. Role delegation, emoji communication, AI bot commands, versus mode tactics, and advanced team strategies.
- Achievement Guide. All 53 Steam achievements, difficulty-tiered distance milestones, and recommended completion order.
- Tips and Tricks. Short mechanics the guides cover in passing, from the heat meter to checkpoints.