In large-scale open-world games with vast maps—such as 'Crimson Desert,' 'GTA 5,' 'Red Dead Redemption 2,' and 'PUBG'—there is a common, almost ritualistic behavior that players seem to adopt: the experiment of blocking the massive trains that endlessly circle the map and trying, by any means necessary, to bring them to a halt.

This phenomenon has also appeared in recently released titles. Players of Pearl Abyss' 'Crimson Desert,' which officially launched on March 20, have repeatedly tried everything to stop the trains traversing the map. In the process, one player even managed to briefly stop a train, drawing significant attention.

'Stopping the train' is not a one-off occurrence limited to a single game. A quick search for 'stopping the train' on YouTube reveals a flood of experimental videos from creators of all nationalities. For instance, the world-renowned creator MrBeast once produced a large-scale project centered on stopping the train in GTA 5. The video received an explosive response, surpassing 110 million views.

The methods players mobilize to stop the train are beyond imagination. Stacking dozens of heavy tanks on the tracks like a barricade is standard. Some players plant over 1,500 explosives along the tracks to trigger a massive chain reaction, while others create a spectacle by having dozens of players stand together on the tracks to block the oncoming train with their own bodies.

However, these experiments usually end in miserable failure. Often, as if mocking the laws of physics, the carefully gathered heavy trucks are sent flying into the air like scraps of paper, or the player's character is shattered upon impact with the rushing wall of steel. Despite experiencing many failures and futile deaths, gamers constantly seek new variables and stand in front of the train. Why? Why are gamers so obsessed with 'stopping the train'?

The Absolute 'User' vs. The Immutable 'Train'

Within a game, the user is an absolute power who determines the fate of the virtual world. The world is designed for the user and revolves around them. The player's choices and actions can fundamentally alter the grand narrative of the game. Depending on the user's decisions, key characters live or die, specific factions rise or fall, and peace may return to a region in chaos. They can take the life of an ordinary NPC walking down the street at will, or conversely, become a hero who saves those in crisis and reshapes the world's order.

These narrative and environmental interactions grant the user a powerful sense of efficacy, making them feel as though they perfectly dominate and control this world. This is because every event and character in the virtual space is perceived as a passive object that reacts and changes only according to the user's will.

Although the world is built for the user, there are things they cannot influence. One such thing is the massive train that endlessly circles a fixed route. This object allows for no physical interference from the user. No matter how much effort or what methods the omnipotent user employs, they cannot stop the train on its set track. The sense of efficacy the user feels vanishes in front of the train.

In fact, there is a clear reason from a programming perspective why the train allows no physical interference. If dynamic physics calculations—such as mass, friction, and real-time collision—were applied to a massive, constantly moving train object, the system's computational load would increase excessively. This would cause severe frame drops and collision bugs in the physics engine.

Therefore, for optimization, developers implement the train as a 'kinematic object' coded to move forward unconditionally along a set path (spline), omitting physics calculations. Players intuitively grasp this system through their gameplay experience and become curious to attempt physical interference with an object that lacks physics-based constraints.

Viewing 'Stopping the Train' Through Game Theory

The challenges posed by gamers can also be explained by game design theory. In his book 'A Theory of Fun for Game Design,' game designer Raph Koster defined the fun experienced by users as the 'learning and destruction of patterns.'

The human brain finds interest in the process of analyzing and learning when faced with new and complex patterns, but it quickly feels bored the moment it fully grasps the pattern and it becomes predictable. At this point, the way to provide a strong stimulus to the brain again is to destroy the familiar pattern oneself or create an entirely unexpected variable.

A train circling a fixed track at a constant speed forever is the most perfect and predictable pattern in a game. The reason players install 1,500 explosives or stack 100 trucks, even knowing they will fail, is not simply to destroy the target. It is because they anticipate the catharsis—the fun—that comes from creating a new variable, such as a minute collision detection error or a derailment, within a perfectly controlled system; in other words, achieving the destruction of a rigid pattern.

The 'Bartle Taxonomy' established by Richard Bartle also supports this. This theory classifies players in multi-user environments into four types based on their behavior: Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, and Killers.

Among these, players with a complex inclination toward being Explorers and Killers find the greatest fun in 'mechanical exploration'—testing the physical and systemic limits set by the game to their breaking point, beyond just spatial exploration to find hidden areas. To them, the invincible train is a massive research subject that symbolizes the limits of an unbreakable system. It is an expression of intellectual curiosity, observing how much the engine can handle in terms of massive explosion calculations and where the flaws in the system are revealed.

Beyond Experimentation: 'Stopping the Train' as Content

The attempt to stop the train has evolved from a one-off individual experiment into a form of play content that the community enjoys together. Dozens of players gather in online sessions for experiments on a scale that a single user could not handle alone.

They systematically divide roles, steal large dump trucks, and build massive barricades at tunnel entrances or on narrow bridges. Gamers who do not even know each other's faces voluntarily create collaborative content for the single goal of 'stopping the train.' The moment hundreds of vehicles collide with the train, the game's physics engine exceeds its computational limits, causing physical errors (glitches) where vehicles soar into the sky or overlapping objects vibrate.

Users do not view this as a mere bug, but consume it as a new spectacle and successful content. The experimental process and results, created through collective effort, are shared via video platforms, forming a challenge culture that encourages the participation of other users. This voluntary way of playing, where users create their own rules and enjoy them together, remains a subject that attracts gamers' attention even years after a game's release.

A Longing for the Purest Form of Freedom

The fundamental reason users try to stop the train in a game is to experience the purest form of freedom in a virtual space. In the real world, it is impossible for an individual to control massive physical flows or established rules.

However, in the space of a game, one can challenge taboos and test limits. The act of trying to stop a train that never deviates from its set path is an attempt to reject controlled rules and create variables on one's own. Even if countless experiments end in failure and the carefully placed objects are destroyed in vain, gamers feel freedom in the very process of attempting control to create cracks in the system. The train-stopping experiments in games demonstrate the essential spirit of challenge in gamers who seek to interact actively rather than passively following the path laid out by developers.