Black tentacles writhe beneath a sundering sky as I look out of the train window in Dreadline Express. It's one of the games I was most eager to play at Gamescom 2026: Described on its Steam page as a "psychological horror Metroidbrainia" where deckbuilding mechanics shape your storyline, it sounded like my kind of weird straight off the bat.
Developer: Dave KonecnyPlatform(s): PCRelease date: October 2026
The deckbuilding in question comes in the form of cards I collect by observing the world around me. Interacting with objects in my cabin after awakening with little memory of my character's past, I slowly piece together my own backstory as well as what has happened to make this the last human train in existence. Think Monster Train, but instead of roguelike combat, the cards help me contend with narrative choices.
Love the sound of Dreadline Express? Read our Carimara review to see if this is another narrative deckbuilder to add to your wishlist!
Dreadline Express is the creation of Czech solo dev Dave Konecny, who sits by my side as I get to grips with his creepy dystopia.He explains how the cards work, each representing the gaining of knowledge about a particular element of the world, from the train itself to the people on it. Each new card discovered gets added to my card album, which is separated into topics.
The trick is to add specific cards to my hand to use them to bypass dialogue checks or other barriers to my adventure, such as locked doors or items I can't quite make sense of just yet.
For example, striking up a conversation with someone for the first time might have the yellow-eyed NPC remarking distastefully upon how rude it is not to introduce myself first. But, equipping my personal card and playing it before I start the conversation allows me to progress, and can result in a new finding being added to my card collection.
I can swap cards into my hand at will, testing whether a new combination might work in a particular conversation by keeping an eye on the text above each character's head – "tell them about your family," it might read, or "ask about the cult" for example. This indicates when a combination might open up new lines of inquiry or reveal narrative threads for me to pick at later down the line.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/adventure/dreadline-express-is-more-myst-than-balatro-but-this-horror-metroidvania-deckbuilder-is-just-as-creative
