Dreadline Express Earns Best Narrative and Soundtrack Nominations at The Horror Game Awards 2026

Dreadline Express, the first-person psychological horror adventure from developer David Konecný and publisher Shoreline Games, has received two nominations at The Horror Game Awards 2026. The game is in the running for Best Narrative and Best Soundtrack, recognition that puts the spotlight on its story-led approach to horror and its original score.

The Best Narrative nomination recognizes the game's storytelling, which was written by David Konecný. Its Best Soundtrack nomination honors the music composed by Karel Vanek. Winners at The Horror Game Awards 2026 are scheduled to be announced on 20 November 2026.

Released on Steam in October, Dreadline Express places players aboard a train carrying what remains of humanity. Its premise uses the confined, forward-moving setting of a train to frame a psychological horror journey built around exploration, character secrets, environmental puzzles, and choices that can alter how the wider story develops.

A pair of nominations for a story-focused horror journey

Horror games can earn their tension in many ways: through pursuit sequences, limited resources, sudden shocks, survival systems, or grotesque imagery. Dreadline Express is positioned more firmly around atmosphere and discovery. Its two Horror Game Awards nominations reflect the areas most closely connected to that design: the narrative that gives the train and its passengers meaning, and the soundtrack intended to sustain the unsettling tone of the journey.

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The Best Narrative category recognizes David Konecný's writing. In Dreadline Express, players are not simply traveling from one destination to another. They are piecing together mysteries spread throughout the train's carriages. The people encountered along the way carry their own hidden knowledge, motivations, and personal histories, making conversations and discoveries part of a larger web rather than isolated story beats.

That structure is especially fitting for a game set on a train. Each carriage can function as its own contained space, with environmental details and characters contributing new pieces to the central mystery. The train is also more than a backdrop: as the last train carrying the remnants of humanity, it establishes an immediate sense of scarcity, pressure, and uncertainty. There is no suggestion of an easy escape from the setting. Instead, the player must confront what the train contains and what its passengers may be concealing.

The Best Soundtrack nomination, meanwhile, recognizes Karel Vanek's original music. An atmospheric score is a key part of psychological horror, where the player's unease may stem as much from anticipation as from anything plainly visible. In a game centered on moving through interconnected train cars and uncovering buried connections, music can help define the emotional distance between spaces, heighten uncertainty during exploration, and make revelations feel more consequential.

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Dreadline Express has been nominated for Best Narrative and Best Soundtrack at The Horror Game Awards 2026, with the awards results due on 20 November.

Exploration, environmental puzzles, and decisions

Dreadline Express combines psychological horror with free exploration and environmental puzzle-solving. Rather than presenting its story as a completely fixed sequence, the game emphasizes choice-driven progression. Players are encouraged to investigate the train at their own pace, build an understanding of its people and mysteries, and determine which leads to pursue.

Its central narrative mechanic is a card-based system. Discoveries made during exploration become playable cards, which can then be used to uncover connections and open additional possibilities. This gives information a tangible role in progression. A clue is not merely a line of dialogue or a note added to a journal; it is part of the player's available toolkit for pushing deeper into the story.

The system also supports the game's focus on relationships. As players learn more about the characters aboard the train, those discoveries can influence how they approach conversations, mysteries, and choices. The result is intended to make the player's interpretation of events matter. Different decisions and changing relationships can shape the path through the journey, rather than treating every revelation as a single mandatory step toward the same outcome.

That design creates a natural link between the two nominated fields. Narrative is not limited to the game's written scenes, because player exploration determines what is learned and when. Similarly, soundtrack work in an experience like this has to accompany a story that may unfold through investigation rather than through a rigid sequence of set pieces. The music needs to support the feeling of searching through uncertain spaces, encountering fragments of larger truths, and deciding whom to trust.

The importance of the train setting

Trains have long been useful settings for mystery and horror because they combine movement with confinement. Passengers are traveling onward, but they are still trapped within a narrow set of connected rooms. Dreadline Express builds on that tension by making its train the final vessel for surviving humanity. Every carriage becomes a potentially meaningful location, while every fellow passenger may represent a source of aid, danger, or information.

The premise also allows environmental storytelling to take a prominent role. A train is naturally divided into spaces with distinct purposes and identities, which makes it well suited to a game asking players to examine surroundings for clues. Small objects, layouts, locked paths, and details in a carriage can all contribute to the mystery without the game needing to stop and explain everything directly.

For psychological horror, this kind of setting can be especially effective. The threat does not need to be constantly visible. Anxiety can grow from what is missing, what does not add up, or what a player suspects might be waiting beyond the next door. By tying exploration to playable discovery cards and story connections, Dreadline Express aims to turn that uncertainty into its main form of progression.

Recognition for David Konecný and Karel Vanek

The nominations give individual recognition to the two creative contributors named in the announcement. David Konecný is credited as Dreadline Express' developer and as the writer behind its story, while Karel Vanek composed the game's original music. Their respective nominations point to the importance of both disciplines in defining the game's identity.

For an independent horror adventure, narrative and audio can be the elements that remain with players long after an individual puzzle is solved. A memorable premise needs characters and revelations capable of sustaining it, while an effective soundtrack can make exploration feel unnerving even in moments when the player is not under direct threat. The Horror Game Awards nods suggest that Dreadline Express' storytelling and soundscape have made an impression among the genre's dedicated award considerations.

The announcement arrives after the game's Steam launch in October, where it has been seeking an audience among players interested in slower-burning, mystery-driven horror. Its blend of first-person exploration, environmental puzzles, branching decisions, and card-based narrative play separates it from horror games that prioritize combat or pure survival mechanics.

What happens next

Dreadline Express now awaits the final results in both categories. The Horror Game Awards 2026 winners will be announced on 20 November 2026, determining whether its nominations turn into awards for Best Narrative, Best Soundtrack, or both.

Whatever the outcome, the double nomination provides a clear summary of what Dreadline Express wants to achieve. The game's horror is rooted in a train-bound mystery, relationships with secretive characters, and discoveries that players convert into new ways forward. Its writing and music are therefore not separate embellishments around the experience; they are central to how its world, choices, and tension are meant to work.

For players on PC looking for a horror game driven by investigation and atmosphere, Dreadline Express is available on Steam. Its awards recognition puts additional attention on the creative work behind its story and score as it approaches the 20 November announcement.