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Exploration and Dungeons
October 20, 2026 at 08:04 PM
Created article on Exploration and Dungeons (2026-10-20)
Exploration in Frostrail happens in two layers. The train carries the crew across the frozen wasteland from one level to the next, and at each stop players head out on foot to search ruins, abandoned settlements and wreckage. The store page also tells players to descend into treacherous depths where greater rewards come at a deadly cost, and development updates describe dungeons to raid and loot. The Steam store lists Open World, Exploration and Adventure among the game's tags.
The world is divided into levels. Moving from one level to the next happens when the train passes through a tunnel, and each of these transitions also saves the game automatically, according to the official demo FAQ. The May 2026 development update added new levels with multiple exit points, introduced progression that carries between levels, and added a brand-new tutorial level with additional tutorial objectives. See Saving and Progression for how this affects saving.
In the tutorial, the first blockade can only be removed after completing specific actions, and players are told to wait until the quest instructs them to interact with it. The same May 2026 update integrated train defense encounters directly into obstacle-clearing gameplay.
The store page describes a world frozen in death, its ruins entombed in ice and time. Players explore the wasteland for vital supplies, scavenge the remnants of abandoned settlements, and break into wreckage lost to the frost. The October 2026 demo announcement mentions abandoned towns that hold resources and are haunted by Revenants who will hunt players down.
The only biome named so far is the tundra. The May 2026 update expanded it with fresh landscapes and nature assets. The Early Access notes list more biomes to steam through among the content planned for the full release.
Every trip away from The Train is a risk, since the train is the only reliable source of heat and the blizzard blinds, slows and suffocates. See Survival.
Dungeons are the deeper, more dangerous part of exploration. The store page also tells players to brave the depths of derelict bunkers and ruined strongholds, where darkness conceals both salvage and death. The April 2026 playtest let players raid early game dungeons, and the May 2026 update overhauled dungeons with new modular assets and improved lighting.
Dungeons hide relics, powerful objects that can be activated aboard the train for temporary buffs during the pilgrimage. FakeFish introduced relics in the May 2026 update and has not published a list of them.
Development updates explain how the world is made. Early on, artists created building blocks and level designers assembled levels from those premade assets. Much of the world is still built that way, but by August 2025 the team had artists working more directly on key locations, adding more hand-drawn and hand-placed structures and clutter to points of interest. The February 2026 gameplay trailer announcement repeated this, saying artists now work more directly on important points of interest for stronger visual storytelling.
Build | Exploration content |
|---|---|
April 2026 closed playtest | The tutorial and 2 more areas of the game, plus early game dungeons |
October 2026 Demo | 3 areas to explore |
The closed beta and other test phases are covered on Playtests and Closed Beta.
The store's Early Access notes list more biomes to steam through, unique locations to discover and dungeons to loot as content planned for the full version, with progress to be shared through roadmaps during Early Access.
As of October 2026, FakeFish has not announced the size of the world, the number of levels or dungeons, names of individual locations, biomes other than the tundra, or whether players can pick between routes when a level has multiple exit points.