After playing a DNA-altering amount of Monster Train 2 over the holiday break, I felt like I was entering the twilight of my time with the game. 370 hours, 127 wins against the Titans—I was still enjoying filling out my logbook with wins, but I’d gotten everything and more that I’d needed out of the game, and my preferences for units and spells had calcified to the point of predictability.After spending a week with a pre-release build of Destiny of the Railforged, my enthusiasm is renewed. Though the DLC doesn’t touch every aspect of Monster Train 2 (there are no new Alcove events, for example), it’s a substantial package that makes an already large experience feel supersized.Also there’s a card that lets you grab units—friendly or enemy—with a giant claw and move them to another floor, which feels cool as hell. Yoink.The anvil and the wormThe two new clans, Railforged (DLC) and Wurmkin (free, available outside the DLC), are meaningfully distinct from the existing roster. Railforged have multiple new mechanics and Wurmkin’s room-boosting Charged Echo mechanic makes a welcome return.Wurmkin, like Melting Remnant, don’t have deep cross-interaction with other clans because their spells are so focused on earning and spending Echoes, which have various floor-specific effects. Railforged have much more universality, and I’ve liked them more than Wurmkin because their design feels so thematically linked with their identity as anvil-smacking Hephaestus lookalikes.Railforged’s smelting mechanic is my favorite thing the clan can do—it opens up fun, newfound strategies and adds value…
