Choo-Choo Charles is coming to get you this year

Sometimes you're scavenging equipment from abandoned camps in the forest and then a train with a clown face and spider legs races toward you. We've all been there. In Choo-Choo Charles, you can fight back, and developer Two Star Games showed a little bit of how that'll unfold in a new gameplay preview shown during the Day of the Devs segment in the Summer Game Fest stream.

This open world horror game is about preparing to 1v1 a monster train. You have your own train, but it doesn't have spider legs. It's a normal train, built to get you around the map so that you can equip it with the right guns and gear to take on Charles. One of those things will be a mounted machine gun.

You have to leave the safety of your train to look for supplies and complete missions from nearby locals. One segment showed an abandoned mine that had some puzzles inside of it. While you're out there though, Charles could show up and tear you apart.

Two Star Games is actually just one developer: Gavin Eisenbeisz. Eisenbeisz was surprised by the response from the game's announcement last year.

"I'll be honest, I was a little surprised by some of the comments," he said. "As a kid, I wasn't particularly scared of [Thomas the Tank Engine]. But looking back at it, I can definitely see where some of that comes from."

That's probably why he put spider legs and a clown face on Charlie. Thanks, Eisenbeisz.

Tyler has covered videogames and PC hardware for 15 years. He regularly spends time playing and reporting on games like Diablo 4, Elden Ring, Overwatch 2, and Final Fantasy 14. While his specialty is in action RPGs and MMOs, he's driven to cover all sorts of games whether they're broken, beautiful, or bizarre.