Cold Rails: A Train Horror Adventure That Cargo’s A Ghostly Traveler

By:Musu Murray
Cold Rails is an indie horror interactive experience where you bartend on a haunted train

Get your tickets out for Cold Rails, folks! Join this wonderful crew and locomotive as you serve drinks and get to know our passengers. You can witness the history of this engine come to life as you wander through the cars. Just don’t walk into the woman in the white dress because she isn’t a friendly ghost.

Cold Rails: A Ghost On A Train

You play as a new bartenter about a cold train, serving drinks to fellow passengers. Like any good bartender, you listen to the customers’ woes and learn about a permanent ghostly passenger that inhabits this train. Whether they’ve heard the story or experienced strange sounds around the cars, it’s easy to write it off as an old train’s history and superstition. There’s no such thing, right?… Well, let’s say there’s a very good reason that the tale is still floating around.

It isn’t long before you start your first shift that you witness the very legend with your own eyes. Sporting a dirty white dress, missing eyes, and a bloody face, a phantom of a woman can be seen walking among the cars. She may not say much, but you can tell that it’s best to avoid this creepy entity as best you can. Strike up a conversation with anyone who may have a clue as to why this specter is still riding along. How did she die? Why is she still here? What’s her connection to this train? Will she ever leave?

Pixelated and Frightening Atmosphere

Cold Rails takes place on a haunted train, where people witness a woman in a white dress wandering the cars
Image of The Woman In the White Dress in Cold Rails, Courtesy of Vivi via Steam

Created by Vivi, Cold Rails is a pixelated and atmospheric horror adventure that delivers some great unease. The look of the game is great, matching the unnerving atmosphere that lingers during the day and intensifies at night. The pixel style and the textures are smooth with a good animation flow as you do your standard bartender tasks.

Cold Rails delivers its story through your interactions with your fellow crew members and the passengers on the train. With the clues you pick up during your chats, you will start to piece together the mystery behind the woman in white and maybe some secrets hidden on the locomotive. The demo gives a great sample of what’s to come when the full game comes out.

One Single Traveler Ticket Please!

While the game isn’t out yet, Cold Rails has a demo that is currently available to play for free on both Windows and Mac! Vivi delivers a very charming start to this horror mystery, and I hope the story is just as engaging. I can’t wait to find out who the ghost is and why she’s still traveling on the train in the afterlife.

Musu Murray is a graduate of Winthrop University with a B.S. in Multidisciplinary Chemistry & B.A. in Illustration Visual Communication. She can understand the technical jargon but prefers writing easy-to-digest reports that get straight to the point. She is a massive horror fan and loves the arts. When she's not writing, you can find her either at her easel desk painting, or bundled up in the dark watching cult classics. From gaming to gardening, she will get her hands on whatever topic she finds.

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