Interview with Oleg Sergeev, creator of The Final Station. The creators of the indie game Final Station on development, inspiration and marketing

I’ll warn you right away that I didn’t understand the plot of the game in much detail. And all my subsequent thoughts will be based on my own feelings. And I could also have forgotten something, because original The Final Station took place 2 months ago. Honestly, I just wanted to write some text about the game. After all, it's really worth it. The review is intended for those who are familiar with the first part, at least from the trailers.

Gameplay. It's not complicated here dlc walkthrough with proper cartridge consumption swinging the bat didn't make me strain too much. You find your own approach to each monster. We have 2 types of weapons - a pistol and a bat, a little less than the driver, but still enough for the job) Somewhere after the first half, both in the original and in the dlc, monotonous research and shootings seem to be a minus of the game. The way it is. But you forget about this a little if you try to understand the ornate history of the world and its murky scenario, and how you are involved in all this.

Trips. There is no arcade driver “simulator” here, where you had to run around pressing buttons and levers on the train, feeding and treating survivors. Travel has been simplified in this regard, now we always have one travel companion with whom you chat on the way to the next destination, along the way learning his story, what happened in the city, information about shelters, etc. The survivors we discovered don’t have much of a choice - either stay among the black infected or agree to the offer to drive off into the distance in a beautiful car with a suspicious guy. Everyone clings to the last chance to survive. The problem is that when we take one travel companion, we throw away another. And whether to change a travel companion or not, the choice is always ours.

In addition, a large part of the text was placed in these dialogues in the car. It is because of them (as the developers probably think) that you will then want to replay the game. After all, there are 10-20 different travel companions, and we also have about 10-20 car transfers, so it’s scary to think what the lion’s share of the dialogues we won’t see, replacing one interlocutor with another)
p.s. perfectionists replay the game in anger.

Atmosphere. It seems like you should get tired of running around the same type of rooms. If you don’t look closely, run and shoot left and right, everything seems gray and monotonous. Rooms, toilets, tables, first aid kits, chairs... But if you look closely, you can see that the artist did not try to stamp locations. In most rooms you can find something of your own, individual. Each city has its own city-forming production/enterprise and hence its own style. Notes scattered here and there create the impression of a once living city.

Plot. There may be spoilers here. I still didn’t fully understand it. What kind of coming is this, and who carried it out. There is a feeling of understatement. No matter how trivial it may be, both protagonists in both the original and the dlc are simple guys, cogs of the system, but in a dying world both of them become an important component of the main scenario. The driver is hoping for salvation; he is carrying valuable cargo, the last part of a super-robot that can defend the country. And the second hero, an ordinary guy, a little daring fellow, gets the opportunity to get into the shelter in exchange for one vile service to those in power. At some point, I lost sight of the names of the key characters, who killed whom, for what - everything was mixed up in my head. I can list for a long time what I didn’t understand)), but I probably won’t. If anyone is interested in speculating on this topic, welcome to the comments, and I will join.

Sound and music. This point should have been thrown into the atmosphere, and it would have been fair. It’s difficult for me to describe the music, I can say one thing, for me it’s a very important part of the game and here it copes with the task perfectly. Thanks to the composer for bringing rustle into our auditory receptors.

Bottom line. I liked the DLC better. The first part did its thankless task - it intrigued me with a terrible unexpected ending, and the continuation revealed many plot points of the entire story. If we describe the percentage of plot clarity, then at first it was 2-3%, but now it feels like a mighty 20-30% (that’s a lot, right?). Special thanks to the developers, they tried to make a high-quality creation and they succeeded.

Thank you all for your attention.

For several years now, the train has been carrying its passengers from station to station. There is a mysterious lifeless world around, but at the train stations of some cities you can still meet anxious people. Ahead are other stations, adventures and an inevitable meeting that does not promise anything good.

The Final Station Even before the release, it attracted attention, taking the main prize of DevGAMM Minsk 2015 and a couple of awards at the Indie Game Cup tournament as part of White Nights Moscow 2015. Well, well deserved.

And that's why.

The morning does not begin with coffee

Waking up after a nightmare, the nameless driver is getting ready for work. Having arrived at the station and chatted with his colleagues, he boards his train and sets off. At the next station, passengers and friendly staff are waiting for him - nothing promises trouble.

The vacation is over, and the first day of work does not foretell anything unusual.

But gradually the situation is heating up. First, the driver's path is blocked by the military, and then the hero ends up in a remote town where not a single living soul is left. Quiet streets are littered dead bodies, and “blacks” roam the surrounding area - aggressive creatures that no longer resemble humans.

Squeezing the pistol in his hand, the driver decides to fight back against the terrible monsters and figure out what is happening. Well, to survive, of course.

The main character doesn't want to die.

The military entrusts us with transporting important cargo.

Through the mouth of the creators

Left - Oleg Sergeev, right - Andrey Rumak.

We decided to talk to the creators of the game - Oleg Sergeev and Andrey Rumak - and find out how the game was created and what inspired its authors.

- Good afternoon, guys, please introduce yourself.

Oleg Sergeev: My name is Oleg, I am a game designer and artist of The Final Station.

Andrey Rumak: What about me - Andrey, I’m a programmer here.

- Tell us a little about yourself. How long have you been in the industry, did you have any game development experience before The Final Station?

Oleg Sergeev: I tried to get into the industry for about six years. I used to do small games, and over time they ballooned into overly ambitious projects that I would need the entire office to complete Ubisoft Montreal for a couple of years. Before The Final Station was released, my main job was web design.

Andrey Rumak: There was no serious experience. I worked as a programmer for several years before starting work on The Final Station, I already knew a little about Unity, so I didn’t have to start from scratch.

- How arose idea The Final Station? Maybe the game had some ideological sources of inspiration? Games, books or perhaps comics?

Oleg Sergeev: From games only Half-Life. We took a lot from there, but over time everything unnecessary fell away; I think the only ones left are the lockers at the beginning of the game. From books - Strugatsky and Lem. From comics - mainly Japanese manga.

- When did the development of the game begin and how long did it last?

Oleg Sergeev: We started working on the game on April 29, 2014. Before that, I spent a couple of weeks working on gameplay and story concepts. And we finished making the last edits on the release day, August 30, 2016.

- How many people created the game? Tell us about your team. How did you meet?

Oleg Sergeev: The main team is two people: me and Andrey. We met when I was looking for a Unity programmer for this project. Andrey took on all the programming part, and I took on the game design, art and everything that was additionally required. Also working with us was musician Geoff Hart-Jones, who wrote the soundtrack and some of the sounds.

Andrey Rumak: For me everything happened in a simply mystical way. I always wanted to get into game development, but didn't know which way to approach it, working alone. I studied Unity, wrote a couple of articles... And then a letter came from Oleg, describing the game, which later became our The Final Station. I fell in love with the project immediately and took it on without hesitation. It was scary, of course, to do something big and complete, being the only programmer. There were many difficulties in the process, but we managed. It was great working with Oleg.

- Tell us about the game world. Where, when and under what circumstances does The Final Station take place?

Oleg Sergeev: The game takes place in the year 106. Yes, that's right, in 106th. Not from the Nativity of Christ, but from the Day of the First Visitation - an event that completely changed the course of history. All these one hundred and six years it was assumed that the world would live in anticipation of a return visit and prepare for it with all its might. But several generations have passed, and people are increasingly asking questions about what it was and whether they should trust the government and its official versions. One of these days main character gets out of vacation and takes the train to start his normal day.

- About your immediate plans: are you already thinking about the second part of The Final Station?

Oleg Sergeev: The immediate plans are the release of a story add-on, followed by several ports. And in next year begin new project, and it's definitely not The Final Station 2.

Train, station and passengers

The Final Station is a hybrid adventure game and driver simulator. In fact, each city is a separate level that can (and should) be explored. There is no point in staying at stations for a long time; you need to constantly move forward - to new stations, train stations, cities.

On the way, you can chat with fellow machinists (they occasionally appear on the local Internet), collect something useful from parts found at stations, and look at a map of the area. In addition, it is important to monitor the condition of the train by repairing it from time to time, and take care of the passengers by providing them with food and first aid kits.

While you're on the train, you need to keep an eye on passengers and check the control panels regularly.

The whole point of The Final Station is in motion: the train goes from station to station and transports passengers, and the main character scours each location for first aid kits, food and ammunition. The main concern is to find the access code in a particular town, otherwise the train simply will not go further. And if at the beginning of the game a piece of paper with a password can be found in the nearest office, then over time it becomes more and more difficult to find the code.

“Infected” stations are fraught with many dangers. There are few cartridges, and ammunition has to be saved. In battle, you can use boxes, toilets, cylinders and office chairs, and in close combat the driver can give enemies a worthy rebuff.

Danger lurks literally around every corner. There are a dozen infected people lurking around the next corner, but no ammunition? Throw at them everything you can get your hands on and run: the “blacks” don’t know how to walk up stairs. There is a way out of any situation. And in general, call The Final Station boring and difficult language doesn't turn. It's easy and enjoyable to play.

There are many locations in the game: there are abandoned cities, a subway, a factory, a maniac’s house and a long tunnel in which you need to light your way with a lantern. Moreover, each level ends in the same place where it begins - at the train. Having entered the coveted code, the driver climbs into the lead car and goes to the next station.

* * *

The Final Station is a game with a unique atmosphere, amazing surroundings and regular references to the work of the Strugatsky brothers. And this is also a curious adventure in mysterious world: it raises many questions and does not provide any answers. The most important thing here is endless movement.

One of the creators of The Final Station Oleg Sergeev and CEO tinyBuild studio Alex Nichiporchik wrote a column for DTF. They talked about the idea of ​​a train in the post-apocalypse and the choice of style, shared sources of inspiration and revealed details of the launch on consoles and the press tour in San Francisco.

To bookmarks

About Me

Oleg Sergeev: There are two of us in the team: me (game designer/artist) and Andrey Rumak (programmer).

Until the end of 2015, I worked as a web designer for about 10 years, and in 2016 I switched to full-time game development for the first time. Before that, I tried to “get into the industry” for about 6 years, in parallel with my main job. I tried to make small games, more often they were quests and adventures that were frozen and put away on the shelf, unfinished, one after another.

Andrey worked as a programmer in the office, while simultaneously studying the Unity engine. IN free time made match-3, a logic game aimed at the mobile market, console role-playing project, wrote a couple of articles about Unity. It was through one such article that I found him. At the beginning of 2015, Andrey quit his job to throw himself into working on The Final Station.

About the idea

Oleg Sergeev: After the cancellation of another failed project (Redbrick adventures in the style of Zelda games), and as soon as Dmitry Sannikov replied that he would not have time to work on mine mobile game Tiny Book Van, I waited 5 minutes and decided to do something new. From the sheet of ideas I chose the line “game about a train” and began to work on the concept.

Initially, it was a train manager, in the spirit of Pocket Trains, only more detailed. I wanted to create a cute little project with endless gameplay about a driver and not about the network railways. It would be difficult to attract attention to such a game, so I had to add something special. And it was post-apocalypse. Pocket Trains in a world after a global catastrophe sounded much more interesting - transporting survivors, delivering cargo with supplies, etc. But when I got to the plot (which is very important to me), I realized that the manager model is not very suitable for this. And after several iterations I came up with a model that was as close as possible to the final game.

The main character is a train driver who travels through a dying world, alternating stations and road levels, fighting monsters and looking after passengers. It turned out to be a mixture of a train simulator and a zombie shooter. This is what I wanted to draw attention to the game in the first place.

When I contacted Andrey, we began to develop the first prototype of the game - a level with a road. A couple of weeks later we were already testing work with passengers, and a month later we got to the stations and the combat system.

In 2015, we managed to get to the White Nights business conference, thanks to Sergei Babaev, where we demonstrated the game for the first time and collected a large number of comments. Later I managed to contact the tinyBuild company, because... Without funding and publishing, the project could not continue to develop.

The gaming inspiration was drawn from Half-Life 2: I wanted to convey a similar feeling of constant movement, an eternal chase. And from the Zelda series games we took the common idea of ​​changing the scenery: night levels, snowy, desert, etc. We didn't look at the other games.

From other sources: 40% of the inspiration was from Japanese manga, and 60% were books by Strugatsky and Lem. From Roadside Picnic I took away the concept of “deliberately limited field of view.” In our case, the player receives information about the world only through a small window, the role of which is played by the main character. That is, no one explains at the meeting what a “First Visit” is, because... the character has lived in this world his entire life, and he is clearly aware. And the player needs to draw his own conclusions, for example, if the plot begins with the splash screen “106th year, from the day of the First Visit,” then this was clearly something important, since the chronology has changed.

Of the things we had to throw away, I can only remember infected passengers on the train. I really wanted the players to figure them out like in the movie “The Thing”: monitor their behavior, if suddenly they start to behave strangely, they lose hunger, or sit motionless, or repeat the same phrase all the way, then the player needs was to solve the problem.

Giving the player the opportunity to throw a passenger the hell off a train, or shoot him - it didn't sound like good idea

In addition, if the infected person “turned,” he had to attack other passengers, which added a gigantic layer of work on character behavior, animation, and so on. As a result, this game element had to be removed.

About choosing a style

Oleg Sergeev: Initially, I chose the simplest type of pixel art, because... The deadlines were very tight (there was a period when it was necessary to commission one location per day, for example), and we had to resort to a lot of tricks.

The visual style evolved and changed on its own, the main changes were only two things:

● Interior items A. We changed the view from front to three-quarters to better convey the volume. Since it was quite early period, the change in style was painless.

● We abandoned true-pixel backgrounds. I really didn't like the look of the pixelated aerial perspective, I prefer it to blur elements in the distance.

About the story

Oleg Sergeev: I think anyone who worked on the Final Station story sooner or later came up with the idea of ​​an unknown cargo that needed to be delivered. This was the first plot idea. As a result, it partially remained, but the main goal was not “what the hero is carrying”, but “where he is going” (at least after the middle of the story).

In terms of storytelling, I wanted to start with clean slate, to avoid diaries/audio recordings and other things as much as possible. It was not possible to avoid it completely, of course, but I am pleased with the result. For example, the idea with receipts, when you can understand the story that is happening to the owner from the shopping list.

But main goal for me it was to make the narrative part more visual. Therefore, when creating each location, I wrote and thought out mini-stories for each house that the player would enter, and the rooms in this house should serve a specific purpose, and not just be decorations. I may have gone overboard here, as I now see how most players don't pay attention to these things. But if there is at least one person who has figured it out, then I'm glad.

About marketing and launch results

Alex Nichiporchik: We quickly realized that people love trains, zombies (spoiler: they're not zombies), and awesome pixel art. The very first shot of a train traveling through an abandoned world instantly sold the game. It was important to leave a sense of mystery and depth in the marketing, which is why all the materials were not particularly specific. What exactly do you do on the train? Where are you driving? For what? Why? We did not answer these questions.

Usually in such games you need to immediately describe the motivation of the main character, set up the conflict, and advance the angle of the story. We didn't do any of this.

The project was announced right before the PAXSouth exhibition in San Antonio in January in the style of “Post-Apocalypse by Train.” Based on the experience of Punch Club, they made a slightly fake demo for an exhibition, where a bunch of press tried out the combat system. We called it that because it does not represent a full-fledged game, but shows a conceptual fragment. At Punch Club we had a 15 minute version showing a lot of funny moments and basic game process. The Final Station did a similar thing: a 15-minute demo that showed off the combat system and difficulty level "like Dark Souls" This is how journalists/streamers/youtubers described it on PAXSouth.

Following the announcement, a significant marketing boost was the open beta test. We sent trial versions to streamers and watched how they played and what exactly they liked. They told their colleagues, and the viral effect began. They confirmed that the combat system works, and began to slowly reveal the narrative angle of the game in marketing.

The project was shown for the second time at the PAXEast exhibition in Boston in April. More more people played, tried out controller support and got interested in the consoles. This is such a thing that any announcement from Sony or Microsoft automatically gives increased attention to PC version. It's a kind of justification stamp.

By E3 in June, it was clear that Final Station would perform well on streams and in reviews, but not on YouTube videos. YouTubers who do walkthroughs - yes, they will be interested. But big bloggers like PewDiePie won’t be interested in it: you can’t make a ten-minute funny video or a series of stupid videos. This is not SpeedRunners or Goat Simulator.

So we aggressively pushed the corner of more standard press marketing - rallies and press tours. There were dozens of them. After E3 (with a small pit stop, which turned into a week-long struggle with the G2A site), we flew to San Francisco and launched a press tour. We went to the offices of GameSpot and GiantBomb, met with the Polygon portal and a bunch of other sites. We filled the penthouse with vodka and had a party. We got drunk with a bunch of streamers and came up with the idea of ​​making wooden whistles at PAXWest in Seattle, where the launch was scheduled.

Write

Many studios try to convey the romance of travel in their games. More often than not, this is only partially successful due to the heavy emphasis on gameplay and cinematography. It’s good that indie developers didn’t give a damn about this.

Our service is both dangerous and difficult

We fell in love with The Final Station from the very first trailer, the atmosphere of which burst out of the monitor with a heavy haze of exhaust fumes, dust and dampness. The game itself offered exactly what we saw in the trailer. But first things first, as is customary. The world in The Final Station 106 years ago experienced the first coming of zombie-like monsters, somehow recovered, but again faced the same threat in the events of the game. We have to take on the role of an ordinary driver of the BELUS-07 train, who, against his will, became involved in a mysterious series of not the most pleasant events associated with the “second coming.”

His responsibilities include monitoring the train and the condition of passengers: timely distribution of ventilation power, shock absorber stiffness, its own special cargo systems, and so on. Clients are constantly hungry; due to hunger or poor living conditions, their health level drops. How more passengers survived, so more money receive, and with them you can already buy first aid kits and supplies. Having arrived at the station, you need to find the codes for the magnetic locks in order to move on. On the way, naturally, you will meet “zombie-like” enemies and surviving people who will be your clients.

The combat system is painfully simple - we point in the direction with the cursor and shoot (or hit with our fist if everything is really tight). A couple of weapons, several types of enemies, nothing too interesting. Sometimes you can throw heavy objects to save precious ammo, but such places are quite rare. As well as the “ingredients” from which you can concoct ammunition, so your fists and surroundings will become your best friends.

Atmospheric zombie apocalypse

Such a simple survival system could not have made the game interesting. In fact, The Final Station would hardly have been remembered at all on the day of release, if not for the atmosphere. It’s all the better that, against the backdrop of everything else, you can talk about it with such enthusiasm There is no need to hide the fact that the lion's share in this is played by simple idea changing landscapes while the train is moving. Indeed, how could other developers forget about such an important detail? Think back to your childhood. Train or car. It was the change of landscape outside the window that gave those emotions that we remember now.

Tiny Build had to be cheated, and we won’t get any “seamless” fields and forests. Instead, after ten seconds, something like a bridge or tree will flash in front of the train, and the picture will change to a completely different one. The first impression of this decision was not the best, but after an hour or two the atmosphere took over, reverent musical accompaniment It reminded me of myself again and I didn’t want to remember any tricks at all.

However, The Final Station lacks world-building. I constantly want to learn something new, read some excerpts from historical essays, watch video chronicles, in the end. Instead, you have to read notes that are not written in the most competent way, build some clumsy social sketches in your head based on them, and forget about them after a few minutes. Only after returning to the train from dialogues with passengers and correspondence with coordinators can you obtain truly valuable information. Fortunately, the sense of mystery is only modestly affected by the lack of world-revelation, so there's still room for improvement throughout the playthrough.

Ultimate

Visually, The Final Station is quite simple, even for pixel art. It is possible that the whole point is the desire of the developers to show deserted cities experiencing a catastrophe. But tinyBuild tried to add atmosphere to their project here too - rain, newspaper sheets that periodically cover an imaginary camera, lamp posts, etc. However, the landscapes in the episodes with the train look much more lively than the locations at the bus stops, and Punch Club, which thundered throughout the world, can boast much more big amount details.

But the author of the review does not take this at all. Simple mechanics and not the best design are skillfully hidden behind the general atmosphere of devastation and travel. For this alone, it’s worth paying the 300 rubles they are asking for the game now.

Plot? Spoilers

I've seen a lot of discussions here on English language, but decided that it wouldn’t hurt to write it in Russian, since the developers are Russian-speaking.

I’ll say right away that I liked the game overall. Intriguing, interesting plot. But this plot... In general, I understood what happened. But there are so many unsolved topics left.

1. X - this is how the notes were signed and the place where it all began. The man wrote that he was conducting research and was heading there. What happened to him, where is this ravine, how did it all start? At the end, after Metropolis, it seemed to me that the main hero was following in his footsteps.
2. What happened after he took the power unit (or whatever it was called). A level with a bar where the characters are sitting and they say to him “well, you’ll come soon, you’ll find out everything.”
3. On the forums they say that the main character came to his daughter at the end. So what does the daughter have to do with it, if not a word was said about the family of the main characters throughout the game.
4. What kind of person was tied up in the bunker at the end of the game?
5. What happened to the guard, why did he fall?
6. Who kills the main character at the end?

And a lot more questions. Share who understood what. It would be nice to hear the authors' opinions.

Showing 1 -15 of 86 comments

The main character was simply being tracked down to steal a train. At the very end, it seemed like he took him abroad, which was what was required.
The old man knew about healing properties black liquid. But it didn’t work out for him, it didn’t work out well.
There are two sides here, each on the side of the portal. We see the second side at the very end, when it captured the protagonist’s city.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the residents of the second side are all white-eyed.

It seems to me that there are many more sides to this than two, and this sect is only one of them. and is she really connected with aliens? if so, then why do they need this train, it’s their technologies that were used to create it, they are much more progressive (and there are no signs that anyone is waiting for this train at all).
burning eyes, it seems to me, are just those who the virus made stronger but did not kill, which means the sect gathers such people, but this is just a counter argument to the fact that they are collaborating with aliens. and what kind of portal it is is not yet completely clear.

and yet, I’m more than sure that the authors themselves fully worked out the plot, so that later it would be more convenient to cut it for the players. so only the creators of the game themselves can tell the whole story linearly and in detail, but they are unlikely to want to

It would be cool to see full version all events in the book version. I think it would be some good science fiction.

3) the situation with the military at the Keskus station is really strange, they keep the wounded (apparently victims in the south and west) in cages, inspect luggage, and can even shoot to kill. By the way, trips were canceled not only to the west but throughout the country. I am inclined to believe that the council knew about the infection and the ways of spreading the infection, and therefore closed all the cities at once, and the military looked for the infected, but the version with the fanatics of the sect is also interesting.
6) And also, in one of the first cities, in Nimlard, there is correspondence about the smuggling of something important from Ristol. I haven’t gotten to Ristol yet, but I’m sure traces of this thread can be found there.

I finally figured it all out! In fact, there is a close connection between these two points. Only after arriving at the location with the Keskus station and going into the control room, we can read the note from the employee, Amanda, she urgently needs to leave due to the fact that a certain Michael has some problems with the military. The station chief will say that Amanda has disappeared somewhere (most likely it is her lifeless body lying next to the military)
The note on the laptop in Nimlard reads:
“I couldn’t find an approach to Adam, he’s just like his father
-And now what i can do?
-We need to go around. Michael(!), I know it's a large shipment, but if we can get it out of Ristol, we won't have to worry about anything else in this life."
Adam - Adam Thornton, the man who runs everything in Ristol and who will later instruct us to take the power unit to Metropol. Ristol is major center for the extraction of electrum. We are talking about the smuggling of this very fossil.
It turns out like this: Michael is a certain employee of the railway service, involved in electrum smuggling, the military found out about all this and staged a raid at the station for the smuggling of the fossil. Hence “Michael has problems” and these searches of people below.

however, why was she killed?

On the other hand, the version that it was Amanda who was killed is not entirely plausible because the corpse is not wearing the uniform of a railway employee.

Why did they catch him at the station in keskus?

Well, everything is simple here. Keskus is a large railway junction, from where trains go to all parts of the country. Michael is a control room employee on Keskus.
And right now another thought came to mind. The laptop with this very message for Michael is located in the Nimlard business center. Based on this, we can conclude that a certain entrepreneur is behind all this. And it’s clearly not a coincidence that the same arrogant man with a newspaper who boards our train in that same Nimlard is precisely an entrepreneur who is in a hurry to get somewhere, after all, at first he was waiting for the express (his name, alas, I forgot).

why, according to one of the passengers, only indigenous residents can use the station in the metropolis, but immigrants cannot

I read somewhere in the game that the settlers are greatly neglected. They are believed to be ordinary migrants looking for better life, in fact, they are descendants of refugees from areas destroyed as a result of the First Visit.

There are only two buildings at Wallick station, one is a railway office, and in the second there is a list of incoming trains, and in the basement there are several computers on one of which is a photo of GG (I’m sure it’s GG because next to it is a corpse in the same cap as GG, but the faces are different ), on the other there are some indicators in the form of scales. Firstly, why was the railway worker the computer operator? secondly, what kind of organization is this and what kind of place is this? and for what purpose do they track GG and what are these indicators?

If you read the records on the computer in the control room of the Wallick station, it becomes clear that for some reason the military called the station commander to their place. The corpse in the train uniform is this same station chief. But about the photo it’s really interesting. It depicts either the station chief, whom the military had just summoned and eliminated, which is unlikely (why?) or the GG, which again brings us back to the most important question of the game: why and by whose order did the train go to Wilstream?
And here there is one more thought. The military tells us that Vilstream and other mountain cities in the west are no more. In the west we find ourselves in this mysterious tunnel-portal (where the first and repeated visits began), one of the locations in which there is a secret workshop for assembling such trains. From the descriptions it can be assumed that none of them were successful. Our mighty Belus-07 is a one-of-a-kind running train, an experimental model. Obviously there is some connection here, but I don’t understand what it is. If there is one more or less successful prototype, why couldn’t train production immediately begin? What if our train was not built by people at all, but is a “trophy” from the time of the First Visit and was sent just as a sample to Vilstream, to that very workshop? Otherwise, who needs an empty train anyway?