Getting started with Frostrail

Frostrail is not a live-service shooter you jump into on a whim. It is a Steam survival FPS from FakeFish (Barotrauma) and Shiro Unlimited, still heading toward Early Access in Q4 2026. You play as a Penitent Gardener on a steam-powered train, scavenging a world the Emperor sold to the Void. This page is the on-ramp: how to get a client, what the first hour is for, and which wiki pages to open before you freeze on the tracks.

If you only do three things today: wishlist the game, request playtest access, and read the core loop. Everything else on this wiki hangs off that loop.

Get the client without guessing

The only official download path is Frostrail on Steam. There is no retail 1.0 build yet. Closed tests use Steam Playtest / Closed Beta entries that appear in your library after FakeFish accepts you.

1. Wishlist and follow the store page so Steam mail actually reaches you.
2. Hit Request Access when a playtest or closed beta is open. The August 31–September 7 2026 closed beta treated earlier playtesters as already in the pool — you did not need to sign up twice. Future waves will likely work the same way. Full invite rules live on closed beta.
3. If a friend is already in, they can send up to three Steam invites from the store page. Each invited player can invite three more. That chain is how most crews actually get four people in a carriage.
4. Confirm you are on 64-bit Windows. Official CPU, GPU, RAM, and storage numbers are still TBA on Steam. Do not trust random aggregator tables; use our system requirements notes instead.

Price is not published. Controller support is planned but FakeFish has said it probably will not ship at the start of Early Access. Keyboard and mouse is the assumed input — see controls.

Frostrail Gamescom gameplay — first look at the train loop

What the tutorial is actually teaching

Spring 2026 development notes added a dedicated tutorial level and extra tutorial objectives. Treat that level as a systems exam, not a story dump.

You should leave it knowing how to:

• Keep the locomotive alive. Fuel and power are not flavor text. The Eden Engine is heat, motion, and the reason you have a spawn you can return to.
• Read the cab. Playtest screenshots show Pressure, Speed, and Consumption gauges plus a body-temperature meter that happily sits at −28 °C outside and +50 °C next to the boiler. If you cannot find those readouts, you are not ready for a long stop.
• Interact with benches. Repair moved onto dedicated workstations. If you leave broken tools in the backpack because “the next chest will drop a new hammer,” the next dungeon will punish you. The crafting page is the bench queue.
• Fight and leave. Ammo is described as a luxury. The tutorial’s job is to make you stingy, not heroic.

When the tutorial ends, progression now carries between levels, and some levels have multiple exits. That matters: a greedy dungeon is optional if another exit still advances the pilgrimage.

Your first real stop

A healthy first hour looks boring on a stream and excellent in your inventory.

On the train. Assign jobs before the doors open. Even solo, decide the order: engine check, then loot, then a timed walk back. In a crew, steal the role split from the co-op guide — one person on heat and power, one on loot value, one watching the rear of the car.

Off the train. FakeFish’s pitch is consistent: mining camps, villages, wreckage, and underground vaults. Stop types live on World and Map. Heat drops the moment you step into the blizzard. Clothing sets added in 2026 are not cosmetics; they are the difference between a two-minute loot run and a corpse the Revenants find first. Pack a torch or a gun you can feed, not both if your pockets are already full. The survival page is the longer version of this paragraph.

The walk home. Engine noise draws threats. Train-defense encounters now sit inside obstacle-clearing, so “we will deal with the tracks later” is how you donate a carriage. If you hear the fight start while two people are still in a cellar, the person on the train is the only reason you still have a save point.

After the doors close. Repair on the bench. Cook or sort food. Dump junk that is not fuel, ammo, repair mats, or a Relic. Relics hide in dungeons and activate on the train for temporary buffs — they are not stash trophies. Rank guesses live on Relics.

What not to optimize yet

Do not theorycraft a 1.0 raid composition. Early Access is planned to last about a year and will add biomes, loot, and train upgrades. Weapon ranks on the tier list are playtest maps, not patch notes. The roadmap is the honest list of what FakeFish has promised versus what is already in a test build.

Do print a copy of the survival checklist or pin it on a second monitor. It is faster than rereading this page mid-blizzard.

Official channels worth one bookmark

Steam news, Discord (testing corps role during tests), and the socials on links beat random screenshots. This wiki is unofficial. When a developer post and a guide disagree, the post wins.

You now have a client path, a tutorial goal list, and a first-stop script. The next page to read is How to Play if the loop still feels fuzzy, or Train and Eden Engine if the locomotive is already the thing killing you. Setting without spoilers: story. Older test windows: playtest history.