Shortly after its release several years ago, the midcore strategy game Railroad Empire showed solid metrics: R1 was around 40%, R30 was close to 2%, and the game quickly formed a very loyal Tier 1 audience. This was largely driven by the high level of authenticity, realistic locomotives based on real blueprints, historical accuracy, nostalgia for classic tycoons and the overall visual quality of the game.

Later, we pushed the visuals even further toward realism and released the second map, which increased R30 by more than three times. After that, each new map continued to give a strong boost to monetisation and retention metrics. As a result, the game has been generating stable revenue of around $500,000 per month for quite some time.

Last year, we focused heavily on reworking core mechanics, and most of that work is now complete. One of the biggest new features is connected to clan wars - but in a different interpretation.

How clans became corporations and made players start spying on each other

In Railroad Empire, clans are called corporations, and the clan war event is called Expansions. But the difference goes much deeper than naming.

The mechanic itself is largely based on what players were asking for. They were very interested in the real-world competition between historical railroad companies: the fight for cities, routes, and trade dominance during the heyday of North American railroads, a very specific period in history. We turned that fantasy into game mechanics, and now it has become one of the pillars of the project’s economy.

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