Dreadline Express is a train mystery that hands you trading cards instead of a magnifying glass, and Shoreline Games says it launches on October 16, 2026. The publisher and developer David Konecny dated the first-person psychological horror game at Insider Gaming’s 28 Games Later broadcast on October 1. It is coming to PC through Steam, and there is no price yet.
The Steam page calls it a “metroidbrainia,” the label for games where what you know, not what you carry, opens the next door. Outer Wilds is the one people usually name. In Dreadline Express that knowledge turns into cards in an album, and putting cards together opens paths that looked shut. Konecny said in the announcement that he wanted a horror game where “making it through comes from paying attention, making connections” and reading the people around you.
The train is a steam engine carrying what is left of humanity across a scorched Earth. A handful of passengers ride along, each with a story and maybe something to hide. Shoreline says the game gives you riddles in place of directions.
The developer credit is one name, but Konecny has help. He started in early 2024 planning to make it almost entirely alone. After its first public showing at GDS Prague that year, he built a team of artists instead, as he explained in a New Year devlog. Kryštof Kolář draws the cards. Nobody on the team works on it full time; it gets made in their evenings.
The card idea is older than the train. Konecny wrote in July that he had it years ago, and first tried it on a story about a cult living in an abandoned mine. His itch.io page also holds small earlier experiments, including Drug It: There And Back Again, a comedy that crosses a visual novel with a card game. Shoreline signed on as publisher in June, the same month the demo went up for Steam Next Fest. Konecny gave that demo a big update on September 21, with a sprint button, new passenger models and some redrawn cards.
A horror game that trusts you to work things out is rarer than one that chases you, and that is why this one is on my list. Shoreline says the demo is only up for a limited time. If you want to know whether the album clicks for you, play it soon, then wishlist Dreadline Express on Steam.
