Foxhole is adding player-built trains and factories as it hits 1.0 this month
Keeping logistics players happy
Foxhole hits 1.0 later this month after years in Steam Early Access, and the update will bring the most exciting possible addition to the massively multiplayer war game: trains. Also, player-built factories, and several other features which should make players focused on the logistics of warfare very happy. There's a new trailer below ahead of its release on September 28th.
For context, Foxhole looks, at first glance, like a real-time strategy game, with a camera positioned high above the scurrying soldiers below. Each of those soldiers is a real player, however, and the war they're waging takes place across a persistent battlefield. You can grab a gun and join the fight on the frontlines, but you'll only have trenches to hide in if someone digs them, and bullets to fire if someone has transported them from HQ.
The players who serve the soldiers on the frontline are called logistics players, and the 1.0 update, called Inferno, should empower them in several ways. First of all, they can now build train tracks and trains to carry materials to the frontline, as well as soldiers and artillery cannons. When Brendy (RPS in peace) played Foxhole back in 2017 he found that truck drivers were its true heroes, and now presumably train drivers can be heroes, too.
Players can also now construct and manage "industrial bases", which can operate as mass production facilities or shipping ports, generating the tools and resources needed for the machinery of war.
For a sense of just how important logistics players are to the game, keep in mind that they went on strike last year, because they felt that changes to the game had placed an increasing burden upon them. Developers Siege Camp (formerly Clapfoot) announced changes the following month to try to satisfy those players, though the Inferno update seems to go much further.
Foxhole hits 1.0 on September 28th, and for now remains available in Steam Early Access.