- Update #015: Schedule - 12 September 2026
Disclaimer: If you’re like me – then you don’t want any spoilers about a game until you boot it up for the first time. In that case, I suggest to not read this blog! Hey all! We'd like to announce that we plan to release Early Access in summer of 2027. When we originally said 2026, Railborn had planned to be a single player game only for Early Access. We did some experimenting with multiplayer and found this to be so much fun, we couldn’t wait until a 1.0 release to add it. Waiting to add multiplayer is what a lot of games do – and this makes sense – because multiplayer can add a year or more to development time. We're not most games though. Hence the unexpected delay. Update 015: Schedule Mini Q/A ⁉️Gamescom 🎮What about the original Private Signup? 🤨Schedule 📅Recent Playtest Pics 📷Mini Q/A ⁉️Q: But you said 2026A: Ok, well, that’s isn’t a question exactly but I get your point. As a…
- Update #014: Bases - 4 August 2026
Disclaimer: If you’re like me – then you don’t want any spoilers about a game until you boot it up for the first time. In that case, I suggest to not read this blog! Update 014: Atlas BasesAtlas BasesTrain HeightMini-mapPlaytest PicsAtlas Bases 🏰While I won’t go into all of the story for Railborn now – rest assured it involves an evil tech corporation named Atlas that has installed many bases around the planet of Vesper. These bases can be dangerous and challenging. So why risk your precious life? Well – these bases were once research hubs now long abandoned from their original purpose and therefor contain plants required to unlock technology! Fill your backpacks full of food, upgrade those tools, put on that smarty pants cap, and venture deep underground to recover those resources. Of course, the location of bases is not always obvious. Another reason to adventure around on foot or se…
- Update #013: Weather - 6 July 2026
Disclaimer: If you’re like me – then you don’t want any spoilers about a game until you boot it up for the first time. In that case, I suggest to not read this blog! Update 013: WeatherBypass SwitchesTunnelsWeather - ThunderstormPlaytest Pics Bypass Switches 🔀If you’ve been following along with Railborn you know by now that there is a lot of tracks available for you to travel along. But did you know not every track is immediately available to you? In addition to upgrading your train to overcome inclines and weather affects; you also have to explore on foot to open up secret track bypasses. Most track bypasses are indicated by a bypass tower – although we promise to keep a few more secret. Tunnels 🚇What is an open world survival train game without tunnels! While we have had temporary tunnels in the game – we needed a system that was dynamic and could be made quickly (we are just a 2-pe…
- Update 012: Friendiversary! - 7 June 2026
Disclaimer: If you’re like me – then you don’t want any spoilers about a game until you boot it up for the first time. In that case, I suggest to not read this blog! Update 012: Our 1 year anniversaryOur FriendiversarySwimmingSleepingTrack BlockersPlaytest Pics Friendiversary 💐Hey friends! I just wanted to say Happy Friendiversary! Wow I can’t believe we revealed Railborn to you a year ago (approximately). Did you think we’d be done earlier? We probably did too. Haha. Real talk since we’re moving our relationship to the next level: We are a tiny team (2 people!) who have made a promise to you, and ourselves, to not release Railborn until it is ready & awesome. You don’t have to worry about us, just don’t forget about us. 😊 2026 is going to be a big year and can’t wait to have you along.I gift you a seed! Swimming 🏊♂️Swimming is a funny system because you put it off for as long as po…
- Update 011: Biomes & Motes - 5 May 2026
Disclaimer: If you’re like me – then you don’t want any spoilers about a game until you boot it up for the first time. In that case, I suggest to not read this blog! I promise to make important release information as separate posts. Also, this post will have abhorrent grammar - that's how you know it's no AI. :) Update 011: Biomes & MotesMotesBiomesMaturity SystemThoughts?Hey friends! The two of us are hard at work! (what’s new). I feel this update contains real SPOILERS. If I was playing Railborn for the first time I would want to discover the Biome system in game. You’ve been warned! Motes ♦️Motes are the currency in Railborn used to upgrade your technology tree. While you may find motes in the world, the majority of motes are harvested from plants you grow. Now, as the game progresses you hopefully find increasingly rare plants that produce more valued motes. Treat motes as your rewa…
- Update 010: Towers - 5 April 2026
Spoiler Disclaimer: If you’re like me – then you don’t want any spoilers about a game until you boot it up for the first time. In that case, I suggest to not read this blog! I promise to make important release information as separate posts.Update 010: TowersTowersTrack TypesRunning yourself overSprintHey all. At a high level I can say we are in the thick of things: simultaneously re-working the demo/starting area and working on a large chunk of the game that follows! Is that an insane decision? Probably.Towers 🗼We have been modifying our information towers a bunch. Towers in Railborn can be navigationally tricky to arrive at - but they reward you with some good info. What that info is? Well, currently you get revealed local Core locations and track layouts. There is additional information that could be revealed (dungeons, cryopods, etc) but at the moment we feel revealing everything so…
- Update 009: Playtest Signup - 2 March 2026
Spoiler Disclaimer: If you’re like me – then you don’t want any spoilers about a game until you boot it up for the first time. In that case, I suggest to not read this blog! I promise to make important release information as separate posts. Update 009: Playtest SignupPlaytestPlaytest RoadmapHey friendos. Short month means the update is a little behind. We’re going to be cheeky with this update and keep it short and sweet:PlaytestYup. We figured we should start making a list. Just for transparency, Railborn will eventually have a demo, and of course an Early Access version. These are probably going to be the most polished and enjoyable experiences. My suggestion is for the majority of people to wait until then.A few important notes which make me sound like not a fun guy, I swear I’m a fun guy, but still:Signing up does not guarantee access to Railborn before the demo/Early Access.Please…
- Update 008: Co-op - 29 January 2026
Spoiler Disclaimer: If you’re like me – then you don’t want any spoilers about a game until you boot it up for the first time. In that case, I suggest to not read this blog! I promise to make important release / playtest information as separate posts. Update 008: Co-opCo-opFeedback SystemHappy New Year friends! 🎉🎉🎉And if it wasn’t a new year for you, then Happy Old Year! We’ve been busy as usual at Washbear so let me catch you up:Co-op 🧑🏻🤝🧑🏼Systems like Co-op have a funny way of breaking if you ignore them for a long time while working on other aspects a game. We’ve spent the last few weeks getting Co-op back to a stable state and beyond! If you’re familiar with game development you know Co-op can be an endless nightmare. Let me share a few quirky and challenging aspects to what we’ve been battling with:First we just needed to get our players connect through Steam, invite, joi…
- Update 007: First Impressions - 26 December 2025
Spoiler Disclaimer: If you’re like me – then you don’t want any spoilers about a game until you boot it up for the first time. In that case, I suggest to not read this blog! I promise to make important release information as separate posts.Update 007: First ImpressionsFront Endmini-Playtests Update 007: First ImpressionsFor those on holidays – I hope you are safe and healthy! For those not on holidays, I hope you are safe and healthy! The two of us that make up Washbear plan to spend a little more time with family than we usually do (…) and recharge our train brains. In the meantime:Front End 🚍We had been using a level from our release trailer also as a temporary front end for the game. Turns out we really love the vibe so have decided (tentatively…) this will be the real Railborn front end. We are missing a few important mentions on the screen but that’s to come. You’ll also notice ev…
- Update 006: Nexus Musings - 25 November 2025
Update 006 TopicNexus MusingsMaking a Demo NexusFairly early in the game you likely will want to build a Nexus. The Nexus can be considered the brain of your train – and one of the ways to improve your overall survival capacity. We’ve been experimenting with what train abilities you gain by building mechanical machines, and what train abilities are unlocked in your Nexus. I can see this change over time – especially when you all start providing feedback during Early Access. As of now your Nexus helps expand:Incline ability - this is handy in a world of tracks rising up mountains.Engines – more engines means more speed and base size (of course not all engines you build are equal...)Platforms - an absolute must to expand your production and collection of biomes.Bonus Oxygen – breathing a little longer is fun!So you better start collecting those Nexus Cores. 😊 Making a demoThis past month…
- Update 005: Trestles and Vibes - 21 October 2025
Hey friends. This month, we've been focusing on the start of the game, specifically the first 60-90 minutes. The goal is to use this part of gameplay for early testing or a demo. This version will be sent to a few people, and based on their feedback, we'll get closer to our first closed mini-alpha. In the next update, I plan to give more details about the opportunities to try the game. Don’t get too excited! We’re very thorough (or slow?) so, take baby steps.Now, for this update, it is going to be a little abstract.Update 005 TopicsTrestlesRailborn vibes Trestles 🌉Railborn is a world tangled in tracks, weaving this way and that, cutting through mountains and diving into valleys. One of the inspirations for this is the really cool mountain railways we’ve experienced in Western Canada, Europe, and Southeast Asia. This summer, the Washbear team visited an old rail line in Myra-Bellevue Pa…
- Update 004: Track Switching - 18 September 2025
Update 004 TopicsTrack Switching (long winded)Auto TestingTrack Switching 🔀One cool aspect of developing Railborn is the unique design challenges we come across. One of these seemed trivial at first, but became more complicated as we started to conjure up the answer: how does the player switch tracks?A couple of challenges:Life would be simpler if Railborn’s train had a “front” – like Zelda Spirit Tracks. But – since we allow piece by piece building of your train, you decide what is the “front”, not us! Therefore, when we present the player “left” or “right” what is this all relative to?UI! How do we present the player the UI to switch tracks? Again, most games would probably pop up an interactive menu – but again, we want players to have the ability to build their train's controlling components piece by piece in the location they choose. Making your own cockpit is cool. So how do we d…
- Ambient Occlusion - Huh? - 19 August 2025
Welcome back! It is that time I like to share a few interesting topics about what we’ve been diligently working on. I’ll admit, this post is more technical than some people probably want. I promise to have more gameplay topics soon enough!Update 003 TopicsCustom MaterialStreaming TechTarget GPUCustom Material 🌲Optimization and performance are really important for us. We love the Unreal Engine – but it is too easy to develop games for the highest end computers. Therefor in order to provide players the experience they deserve we have lots of tricks up our sleeve. For example, we made a custom material for Ambient Occlusion when rendering our MANY foliage in the game. The who what?Here is a screenshot of some sample woods that contains our low poly foliage – great performance, but lack luster looks. Our custom material pre-generates an Ambient Occlusion layer for these trees with a snowy…
- Update #002: Rooftop Runs - 16 July 2025
Well – I’m going to come right out and say it – the last month has been fantastic for the future of Railborn. Since we announced just a little while ago we have had a huge amount of interest from players like you – which means others share our vision! This is 1) motivating 2) exciting 3) tells us people want the type of game we want. Reception outside of Steam has also been mega positive! If you are new with Washbear – every official update I choose a select few topics to discuss. We have been working on so much – but for the sake of all our time, I pick just a couple of thoughts. Update 002 TopicsWishlistsVRAMRooftop Running Wishlists🎊How is this even a topic? Well it is! I’d provide you with an actual Wishlist update but the Steam backend seems to be having a hiccup, so I’ll save that for later this week. Needless to say you all have been AMAZING. I can’t stress enough how Wishlists…
- Update #001:🚆🦖Railborn - 8 June 2025
Hi all! Welcome to our first Update for Railborn! 🎉🎉 If you’re new to the Washbear family – our first game was Parkasaurus. 🦖 Railborn has been in development for 2 years now – and we are very excited (relieved?) to finally be able to share what we’ve been working on. Just like with Parkasaurus, we plan to develop Railborn alongside our community, taking feedback and ideas.💡 I know, I know, a lot of developers say that - but we actually mean it. We've proved this with our development of Parkasaurus. Ask any of our community. Our community was the rock solid foundation 🪨 that helped make Parkasaurus a success, and with your help we hope to do it again with Railborn🤘. The first HUGE favor you can do for us (yes, you will hear me drone on about this a LOT 🙄) is to:Wishlist Railborn and pass on the link to your friends!Why? Well – Wishlists are really important to let Steam know peop…
