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Steam horror game challenges you to kill spider Thomas the Tank Engine

A new Steam horror game, Choo Choo Charles, sees you battle a mutated spidery Thomas the Tank Engine, in petrifying homage to those dragon-replacing Skyrim mods

Steam horror game challenges you to kill spider Thomas the Tank Engine. A horrifying spider train chases after you with its massive legs and bloodthirsty grin

Steam horror game Choo Choo Charles, which sees you battle it out with a monstrous, eight-legged Thomas the Tank Engine-like creature, launches today, harkening back to Bethesda RPGs and those horrifying Skyrim mods that replaced dragons and monsters with the loveable train, and locomoted straight into our nightmares.

With a grin like Pennywise and several gigantic, arachnoid limbs, the eponymous Charles stalks you around a sandbox island as you try to complete missions and repurpose your own train into a steam-powered killing machine.

Machine-guns, rockets, enormous armour plates – by finishing jobs for the island’s naturally terrified populace, you gradually transform your cute yellow locomotive into a Mad Max-style war rig, all the while trying to avoid and fend off the bloodthirsty Choo Choo, who stalks the countryside like a coal-powered Mr. X.

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“Mature content description,” reads the Choo Choo Charles Steam page. “Blood, gore, and people being eaten alive by a spider train.” It’s a thrilling combination of open-world survival, RPG-type customisation, and nightmarish kids’ TV. Once you’ve gathered enough upgrades and think you’re ready to take Charles down, you summon him one last time for a brutal fight to the death.

I still remember the first time I saw it, the Skyrim mod that turned Paarthurnax into Thomas the Tank Engine. The ominous whistle. That unchanging, smiling face. Choo Choo Charles is like that, but worse, and an entire game. Get your own first-class ticket to fear now courtesy of Choo Choo Charles on Steam.

Alternatively, try out some other great new games, or perhaps the best survival games available now on PC. If you don’t have the heart to take on a blood-drinking spider train, you can perhaps take it a little easier with some free Steam games instead.