How to beat Dead Rails
There are a million and one things to do in Dead Rails, but if you're one of the people who still hasn't finished it, I'll teach you some of the simplest and best ways to beat Dead Rails.
Your task is to escape - use what you can, what you have lying around you, and try to survive during the zombie apocalypse. There are hordes of zombies, vampires and werewolves charging at you every night, and sometimes during the day, and if you want to live, all you can do is try to keep your distance.
After completely understanding a few important aspects of Dead Rails, I managed to complete it myself, and that gave me the confidence to try again and again. With each completion, it seems like you will manage to do more and more, and your courage to explore new areas builds up.
So, let me teach you all the most important things you need to do to beat Dead Rails!
How to beat Dead Rails as a complete beginner
My first tip would be to take your time. I'll go over a few of the things that should be on your 'to-do' list of tasks while playing Dead Rails.Take your time and have patience
You will need to have a lot of time and patience to collect money and build some defenses. Ideally, you want to leave the first town only after you've got a full tank or at least 3/4 full.So, the first thing you need to do is loot and sell stuff until you can buy 3 or 4 coal to proper the train. After that, you can just stop in the next town, where you will spend a couple of days/nights and loot some more!
Don't overstay
This applies to everything in Dead Rails - from spending too much of one day in a safe area, or spending too much time on the outside before it gets dark. Until you have a rifle or at least a decent weapon (even though the shovel will do sometimes), you don't want to risk spending too much time outside of your train, far away from the safe zone in the middle of nowhere.Loot and sell to make enough money
You want to loot all the corpses scattered around safe areas (the ones killed by turrets) and then either sell them or use them as fuel. There's nothing that has zero use, so make sure you put everything you loot to good use.Buy a rifle
You want to buy a rifle and some ammo as soon as possible. This will help you a great deal going into the last area, right before you are able to escape. Make sure you also stock up on ammo because a weapon's no good without ammo.Barricade your train
Your train is going to act as a means of transportation and a safe zone. You can buy sheet metal to weld them onto the train, so it's a lot safer. Ideally, during the night, you can either stay inside or on top of the train. The enemies will have a much harder time reaching you.
Never leave town without enough fuel
I've briefly touched on this earlier, but you always want to have some fuel as a backup. You can use coal or corpses - it doesn't matter as long as you have some in case you missed filling up before leaving town.Beating Dead Rails
To beat the game in solo mode the same way I did, these steps are a sure way to ensure that. I always ended up spending 1-3 days in a town, but never more than 3. As long as you have enough fuel and ammo, you should be pretty good in terms of reaching the final stage of the game.In the final stage, it's crucial to use the rifle and clear any incoming enemies. You can't risk getting close to them and fighting them in melee mode because that is a sure way to lose 80% of the time.
Towards the end, if you manage to survive for the time required (it will show you how long you have to survive), you've beaten the game!
I've had a blast playing Dead Rails. It reminded me so much of 7 Days to Die, but without being as extreme. I truly believe that if you take your time and don't rush things too much, you'll easily find your own tactics to beat the game, which could even be better than mine!
On a side note, do you think we'll get some Dead Rails codes?
