Introduction

Seeing how the game has so few  concurrent players on Steam, it seems that it wasn't such a bright idea  to make this game an EGS exclusive after all. I firmly believe had they  released in on Steam day and date with workshop and community support  the game could've been massively more successful.

The game itself  is a direct evolution of Spintires and Mudrunner. It's still the same  game under the hood, with minor technical improvements, but instead of  focusing solely on old Russian equipment now it features some licensed  US vehicles as well. And hauling logs is no longer the only activity.

Gameplay

The biggest difference gameplay wise  to the previos games is that now you can buy, sell, and upgrade  vehicles. So the goal is no longer just explore the map and transport 3  logs to the log station, but there are various map related missions and  contracts you can take on.

It's a little confusing how some  trucks are unlocked by simply exploring the map and finding them, while  others are readily available for purchase in the shop, if it's not  locked behind a level wall that is.

Unfortunately there is a level  system. Which I'm not a big fan of in any game, especially when its  purpose is to wall you from accessing certain QOL upgrades, or items  despite having enough in-game currency to buy them.  Like it is the case  here.

Most vehicle upgrades outside of tyres are only unlockable  by finding them in the world. Which means the most efficient method  would be to explore the entire world with a light scout vehicle and  unlock all upgrades before doing anything else. But this is just not a  realistic scenario for anyone to approach the game. As just driving from  upgrade location to upgrade location would become terribly boring fast.

So the method you stuck with is to explore a little bit, find some  upgrades and missions and try to do as many of them as possible with the  equipment available to you. Of course this leads to a catch-22 because  you will struggle a lot more trying to complete missions with inferior  equipment. And what might take 10 minutes with a fully upgraded off road  truck, can be an hour long struggle if even possible at all with one  that lacks differential locks or even an AWD system and appropriate  tyres.

But the only way to tell if your eqipment is capable of  finishing a job, is by trying. And this leads to the sunken cost  fallacy, when you already spent half an hour trying to complete a job,  you are not going to abandon it, until it is beyond hopeless. This leads  to what is supposed to be a relaxing and chill game becoming one of the  most infuriating titles I've played.  

The annoying nature of the  game is exacerbated by the lack of a manual saves. So you can't save  before or after hard to navigate difficult parts of the journey. If you  fall off a cliff, the entire hour you spent on getting to that spot is  null and void and you have to try again from the start, or mount an  excruiating rescue mission to recover the lost cargo or vehicle.

"Oh you, just hate a challenge in games"

I  can already hear in my mind the excuse. But no, having to repeat an hour  long tedious but not particularly hard section is not a healthy  challenge. It's not even a challenge, it's just the designers showing me  the middle finger while wasting my time. The hard bit would be just the  same if I was allowed to try it again without having to go through  everything that lead up to it. This is the equivalent to a permadeath  mode in other games. But here it is the only gameplay mode.

Well  not only, there is an additional hard mode, where recovery to garage and  fuel costs money, and you can only sell stuff at half price, but the  biggest difference is that easy loading of cargo is disabled. You have  to manually crane in every piece everywhere. There are some missions in  normal mode where you have to manually crane stuff, and believe me that  is more than enough, especially because the camera works terrible in  crane mode, half the time you don't see what you need to see properly.

Downloadable content galore

The  game has numerous DLCs and season passes, it's really confusing, which  is part of what season pass and how to obtain. The base game itself has 3  regions to explore. Unfortunately they all seemed mediocre to me. My  favorite map so far was Wisconsin, which is part of the season 3 update,  which is part of the year 1 pass. Confusing right?

That said  there is enough content in the game to last a lifetime. There are so  many missions and jobs to take on that doing them all should take  hundreds of hours by my estimate.

Talking about maps, they are  about 90% mud or snow, with only the remaining 10% being hard surface,  which raises an interesting conondrum. The game includes a variety of  highway trucks that lack any offroad capability, they can't even be  upgraded to be suited to off road driving. Yet there are barely any  locations in the game you can travel between on proper roads. Which  raises the question of why even include these vehicles that are ill  suited for any mission in the game? If there was at least one region or  even just a map that has a good road network, their existence in game  would be instantly justified.

Still related to the maps is one of  the negatives of the game, that they are all completely lifeless. You  are the only movement in the entire game world, there isn't even  wildlife. So it seems more like a post apocalyptic game than anything  alse. Adding some AI traffic would greatly improve immersion. And even  just a simple thing like adding talking heads as mission givers would be  a much needed improvement.

Physics

Due to its nature this is the most  important part of the game. And it's a mixed bag. Some things it does  great while other times it goes completely wild or does things that are  quite unrealistic. The deformable terrain and water modelling is great.  What is not great however is that everything seems like you are in  rubber world. Trucks bounce like basketballs, if you accidentally go  into a fallen tree it will act like a slingshot and catapult you back  with twice the force. Ridiculous.

And there are the rare freak  occurences where driving over completely flat terrian your truck will  suddenly flip on its side, or sustain great amounts of damage for no  apparent reason.

And vehicles powertrains are completely out of  touch with reality. The RPM counter is meaningless, it is arbitrary,  there seems to be no gears in the trucks just a rubber band driving the  wheels, like a moped. The top speed of all trucks is between 20-40mph.  Which becomes even less on mud, it feels like driving in glue. There is  no wheelspin to talk of, when you hit a boggy part the truck seems to  simply loose power and struggle to move instead of the wheels spinning  out, like your engine has lost 90% of its power output.

There are  various locations on the maps where a fully loaded truck just goes  through without a problem, while a light vehicle instantly sinks through  the mud and gets trapped becoming completely unable to move. Like  someone accidentally switched a + with a - in the physics engine.  

Graphics

The graphics is improved quite a bit,  the atmospheric effects and light rays are quite good, buying extra  lights actually matters in this game.  The overall look of the game is  very homogeneous. And I say that as an absolute positive. Nothing stands  out, the feel and atmoshpere of the game is consistent.

Pros and cons

+

  • Lots of content
  • Evolution of the previous games
  • Consistently good graphics
  • When you get into the rhythm, it becomes addictive
  • Works great with  Keyboard, you don't need an analog controller
  • There is some strategy aspect to it as well

-

  • Gets very tedious and repetitive at times
  • Level walls making the early game even more tedious
  • No manual saves
  • Infuriating when you have to restart a mission after sinking a ton of time into it
  • Powertrain simulation
  • Lifeless maps

Verdict

Graphics: 7/10
Physics: 5/10
Atmosphere: 7/10

Overall impression: 7/10