Players take on the role of an American who accepts an invite by a friend to join them on the Orient Express, days before the start of World War I, only to become involved in a maelstrom of treachery, lies, political conspiracies, personal interests, romance and murder, upon boarding the train.

The game operates primarily from a first-person perspective of the story's lead character when they explore the train,[5] with cutscenes being conducted in the third-person.

The main areas of the game are within the carriages of the train, with the player able to look around each place they are in, move down corridors, enter and leave compartments, knock on doors, and talk to people.

The game's story takes place in 1914, between 24 and 27 July, aboard the original Orient Express route between Paris and Constantinople (modern Istanbul), prior to the outbreak of World War I.

Robert Cath, an American doctor on the run from the police in regards to a murder in Ireland, is invited by his friend Tyler Whitney to join him on the Orient Express.

Boarding the train whilst it is moving through the outskirts of Paris, Cath finds Tyler dead in his sleeping compartment, apparently murdered.

Cath discovers, through the course of investigating Tyler's death during the journey to Strasbourg, that his friend was arranging the purchase of weapons from August and supplying these to the Black Hand, a Serbian rebel movement whom Miloš and his associates belong to.

To facilitate the deal, Tyler was supplied with a Serbian national treasure called the Firebird - a mechanical music box that transforms into a bird, accompanied with a whistle shaped like a scarab beetle - which he intended to sell to Kronos for the payment August was to receive.

Whilst the train is en route to Vienna, Cath finds a French boy in possession of the Firebird's whistle, and recovers it with a small trade.

Following the concert, Cath encounters Anna in the baggage car while he is examining August's weapons, and learns from her she took the Firebird, but that Tyler was dead when she did so.

After the train departs, Tatiana consults Cath over deep concerns she has for Alexei, fearing he plans to kill her grandfather for the injustices he served upon his father.

Abbot shares a drink with him following this, confessing that he was investigating rumours concerning Alexei, while also noting he believes Cath, whom he recognised, is innocent of the murder in Ireland.

To protect them, Cath detaches the rear carriages from the train, after they head to them; only Anna and her dog, Vassili, Tatiana and Abbot remain on board the Express.

Cath regains control of the locomotive, after Anna shoots Miloš to save its engineer, but refuses to let the Express stop within Austria and keeps it going on into and through Serbia.

[5] Since illustrating a game of this magnitude by hand would likely take an exorbitant amount of time, the look was achieved by using rotoscoping, a process that Mechner had used in Prince of Persia.

[10] During a 22-day-long live-action video shoot, every action by every character in the game was photographed by actors wearing distinctive makeup and costumes against a bluescreen on 16mm film and digitized.

[12] Following a bidding war between several major game publishers, Broderbund, SoftBank, and GameBank split the worldwide distribution rights.

Dubbed versions of the game were released in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian (unofficial bootlegged localization), and Japanese.

The game was released 1997, after five years of development, at a final cost of US$5–6 million,[6][13] on a multi-platform 3-CD set that covered Windows, Mac OS, and MS-DOS.

[6] Softbank pulled out of the game market, dissolved its subsidiary GameBank, and cancelled several dozen titles in development, including the nearly finished PlayStation port of The Last Express.

Consisting of a mix of dominant synth instruments and occasional solo violin, the score was recorded at Forte Muzika Studios in Los Angeles.

However, SoftBank soon exited the game industry and closed GAMEBANK, which resulted in the cancellation of a "nearly finished PlayStation port of Express", according to programmer Mark Moran.

These problems, according to Chris Remo of Gamasutra, left The Last Express "unable to reach the long tail sales on which adventure games traditionally had thrived.

Critics hailed the game's authentic and compelling period ambiance,[20][22][28][27] complex and unpredictable story,[20][21][22][28] captivating musical score,[20][22][27] and unique visual style.

[20][21][22][28] Reactions to the real-time system were more mixed; some said that, while it adds to the tension and immersion in the game, it often requires the player to rewatch numerous scenes when they fail, or sit and wait when they accomplish a segment's tasks early.

Steven Levy and Cameron Crotty of the magazine wrote, "What makes The Last Express vividly memorable is the painstaking detail, particularly the lush score and the faithfully rendered sounds of the most famous train ever.

The magazine's Steve Bauman wrote, "While it received terrific reviews, and its innovative storytelling engine should have pointed toward a bold new future for interactive fiction, it had disastrously low sales, essentially bankrupting the company that produced it and telling the industry that consumers weren't interested in this type of game.