Your train is your fortress

Path to Catakombs is an action-strategy roguelite in which you lead a combat train through procedurally generated underground catacombs.

Man the locomotive's machine gun, direct your crew's fire and decide when to boost or brake. Kobolds surround the train and climb aboard. While your fighters hold them off, you must watch the tracks, protect vulnerable wagons and react to new threats.

Build your combat train

Start with a locomotive and recruit your own crew. Hire fighters from ten specializations, from gunners and snipers to alchemists, mechanics and electricians. Divide the limited space in your wagons between crew and equipment.

At pit stops, add wagons, reinforce their hulls and fit rams and defensive modules. Repair damage and restore wrecked wagons before the next stretch of track.

Your fighters earn experience in combat, while mechanics gain it by making repairs during battle. Each new rank automatically grants a random upgrade for their profession. Raise your own veterans or inspect an experienced recruit's upgrades before hiring them.

Choose a doctrine and create synergies

Before each run, choose one of three doctrines: gunnery, alchemy or engineering. Your doctrine determines which synergies you can create and how different professions work together, while leaving you free to recruit any fighter.

At pit stops, combine crew in pairs and trios, build connections between neighboring wagons and try new combinations:

• With the gunnery doctrine, a gunner paired with an electrician triggers chain lightning on hit.

• With the alchemy doctrine, a sniper shatters an alchemist's ice mark, sending a fan of shards into enemies behind the target.

• With the engineering doctrine, an electrician and a fire alchemist create two drones: one sprays fuel, the other ignites it.

Synergies add combined effects, devices and new ways to fight. Discovered recipes stay in your encyclopedia between runs.

Plan your route and take risks for loot

Plot a route on the map and change direction at junctions. Mine chambers, spider galleries and kobold camps form new networks of tracks. A shorter route may spare your train, while a detour can lead to loot and extra battles.

Find recipes, rescue survivors, send crew on sorties and haul crystals under enemy pressure. Decide whether to stay for another reward or reach the exit with what you have left.

Defeat the masters of the depths

Enemies flank your train, fire from a distance and board your wagons. Bosses demand new ways of using your train: escape the ogre's grip, shoot off the gnoll's attachments and free wagons from the Matriarch's webs.

A destroyed wagon loses its crew and equipment, leaving a charred wreck in the train. If the locomotive is destroyed, your run is over.

Demo: Act I and endless mode

Fight through the nine locations of Act I. After defeating its final boss, you can continue in endless mode with your train, crew, upgrades, gold and synergies intact.

Enemies grow stronger with each new leg, and a boss is chosen at random from Act I's roster. Doctrine restrictions on recipes are lifted: try new combinations and see how much more your train can take.