Development and Release

Railborn is developed and published by Washbear Studio, a small independent studio. The game is being built in Unreal Engine 5 and is planned for release on Steam Early Access for Windows PC. Washbear Studio is an Epic Games MegaGrants recipient.

Announcement

Railborn was officially revealed at the PC Gaming Show on June 8, 2025. The reveal included both a short and a long gameplay trailer. The announcement confirmed the game's survival and train-building premise, its one-to-four player co-op support, and its Steam Early Access release plan.

Early Access Plan

Washbear Studio plans to release Railborn into Steam Early Access before completing it. The studio estimates the Early Access period will last one to two years. During this period, the team intends to share a public Trello development board with the community, conduct regular beta tests with early community members, and incorporate player feedback into the game's development.

The price of the game is not yet announced. The studio has stated that the price will increase before the end of Early Access.

Alpha Playtest

In March 2026, Washbear Studio announced the first closed alpha playtest. The studio noted that testers should expect to see only small portions of the game in a rough state, as the playtest was intended to gather feedback on what was fun, identify bugs, and find rough edges. The team spent several weeks prior to the announcement stabilizing co-op after an update introduced synchronization issues with construction, player positioning, and shared resource management. The closed playtests have continued since then, with the studio adding testers from its sign-up list over time, and it has referred to an upcoming demo alongside the ongoing tests, though no demo date has been announced.

Platforms

Railborn launches on Windows PC via Steam. Mac and Linux are not supported at the Early Access launch. The studio has indicated that native Linux support is planned for the 1.0 release, though Proton compatibility may allow earlier access for Linux users.

Steam Features

On Steam, Railborn is configured to use several of the platform's features. The Steam store page lists Steam Achievements and Steam Cloud saves, along with full controller support and Steam Family Sharing. As with other pre-launch details, the exact feature set may change before and during Early Access.

Language Support

Railborn supports 12 languages at launch, with interface support for English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Simplified Chinese, and Turkish.

System Requirements

Minimum and recommended system requirements for Railborn have not yet been announced. Both the minimum and recommended specifications are listed as TBD (to be determined) on the game's Steam page. A 64-bit processor and operating system are required.