Railway Empire 2 takes the train simulation cross-continental

Gaming Minds Studios and Kalypso have announced that Railway Empire 2 is on the way in 2023, complete with sprawling maps depicting the entirety of Europe and North America. It'll come to Steam, and I'd guess Epic too, and publisher Kalypso notes that it'll come to Xbox Game Pass for PC. The announcement was made at GamesCom 2022.

It'll feature much larger maps than the previous game. Two large maps will cover the entirety of the US and Continental Europe, while smaller regional maps will put detail on specific areas. Railway Empire 2 also promises to have more intuitive, improved track construction with automatically placed signals, larger train stations, and real-time terraforming.

There will be 60 historical steam engines in the game, which begins in the early 1800s and focuses on running train companies in 19th century amid the railway-driven industrial revolution.

Back in 2017, Leif Johnson liked the first Railway Empire well enough, calling it a "mostly satisfying management sim" that "captured the complexity behind building a railway." He noted, however, that it first and foremost a railway expansion simulator, not a historical piece, and glossed over complex political issues around building rails in the 1800s. Nonetheless, Railway Empire did pretty well for itself, racking up a fat pile of globe-trotting expansions in places like Mexico, Europe, the Andes, and Japan.

This train-building sequel will clearly focus on its strengths, and Kalypso's announcement mentions difficulty settings catering to both casual trainset-builders and those who like tough transport logistics.

Railway Empire 2 was revealed as in development early last year, but we've heard little about it since. It'll once again have main characters to play as, each with their own abilities, alongside five campaigns, 14 different scenarios, and a free play mode.

You can read the full announcement for Railway Empire 2 on Steam, as well as check out its Steam page.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.