Islands & Trains Review – A TRAINquil & Cozy Sandbox Game

Developer: Akos Makovics & Fabi Smith
Release Date: May 29th, 2025
Price: $6.99
Platforms: Steam

Islands & Trains Overview

A small island with forest areas and villages, with a train running aorund it.

In Islands & Trains, players can sit back, relax, and build tiny islands connected by equally tiny trains. Players can build near-infinite dioramas and sprawling interconnecting regions using a variety of assets. The best part of Islands & Trains is that there are no timers, no goals, and no stress, just trains and relaxing music.

Jumping into Islands & Trains is easy. To start a new save, players can select one of five themes. These themes will establish some general environmental aesthetics for the terrain pieces. An example of this, using the Winter theme, the ground will be covered in snow, while buildings and trees will have a layer of snow on top of them. The music playing in-game will also fit each seasonal theme.

Revisiting Islands & Trains for the 1.0

A snowy island with a small village on it.

Players familiar with the Islands & Trains demo will notice that the full game includes more building and decorative objects. There are over three hundred total assets that players can use to create unique creations.

A recent Islands & Trains update has added six new assets, with Quality of Life updates, such as a manual save button in the main menu and the ability to make the train move in reverse. All of these additions to the game, as well as the existing list of assets, give Islands & Trains a lot of replayability.

A large island with a train driving through a town and into farmlands.

When I jumped into the 1.0 version of the game, I tried to push my creation to the edges of the map. It took several days; however, I was able to build a winding region map with multiple stops and plenty of fun points of interest. A great thing about Islands & Trains is how easy it is to work on small sections of larger islands, leave, come back, and then branch out to create a whole world that finally connects via the train.

Final Thoughts on Islands & Trains

Overall, Islands & Trains is relaxing and the perfect cozy game for players who enjoy sandbox building games. There are no stressful tasks, locking assets behind walls; everything is readily available to start creating. If you love trains and games like Islanders, Dorfromantik, and Townscaper, you should give Islands & Trains a try. Islands & Trains is currently available on Steam for $6.99.