SnowRunner Review

I was really excited when this got announced because I absolutely loved Spintires on the PC years ago and also Mudrunner, which I owned on the Xbox and always hosted public co-op games because it was awesome to work as a team with people, although every game had that one player that didn't help, had no idea what they were doing and always got stuck/wrecked. Of course, the only environments that were available with the game were ... well, muddy.

We now have numerous locations and bigger maps, more vehicles, more cargo and more goddamn mud, snow and ice, more inclines and those really annoying rocks precisely placed to either make your life hell or just send you into a rage.

If you've played the previous games then you'll grasp the concept rather quickly as a lot of it is still the same but improved, examples of tasks you'll need to take are delivering resources to locations to build bridges to connect other areas of the map to make your life easier, or clearing obstructions varying from rockslides to collapsed electricity transformers. In all honesty, when I looked at the map and saw all of the jobs available it was very overwhelming to the point of being confused as to where to start and what I needed to do.

Vehicle choice is really important, your best friends are either your scout truck or a truck having both differential lock toggle and all-wheel drive toggle, there are vehicles dotted around the map, but they are not always that useful, the first truck I found had neither differential lock toggle or all-wheel drive toggle available... it is really not ideal to haul 2 trailers of wooden planks through wet mud with a truck with no AWD or differential lock, its not only hell, but unbearable. Especially when the only other vehicle I had at the time to help was my scout truck, which did very little.

The thing that I love about these games is you need to seriously plan your approach, because if you just try to wing it, you'll either go the complete wrong way or have the wrong equipment. In Mudrunner you'd just choose the kind of trailer you want to automatically attach the trailer you need for your haul. In Snowrunner there is a trailer store, which took me by surprise in all honesty. You do come across trailers around the map but they are usually part of tasks such as lost or trapped trailers needing to be returned. This is often the same with vehicles you find around the map, you cant just jump in and make them yours.

The only thing I didn't like about the map, which I mentioned before, is that there is so much information on there it becomes a bit overwhelming, but at the same time it really shows off that there is so much content and that the map is actually pretty massive! Especially since it also expands into numerous maps in one continent, which provides plenty of game time and tasks for you to complete.

The game is really beautiful, your biggest enemy is ice. Yes, ice. Any of you drive? I haven't been able to drive because I have Epilepsy and only recently have been able to start driving I only had one experience when it comes to ice on the road and not only is it scary, its also extremely annoying so when I came across it in the game, especially when you have a large vehicle, it kind of stops your heart not knowing if you'll go off a cliff or topple over, which in my case was both scenarios. I never really have the best luck with these kinds of games but that doesn't stop me from playing.

The massive increase in vehicle choice as well is amazing, you won't find all the vehicles you want, my usual first plan is to go around with the scout truck and find all the lost vehicles first so I have them in my garage, still don't have the Hummer, which became my favourite scout truck in Mudrunner when it came out with the American Wilds DLC. The first truck you'll probably find looks like that truck from Terminator 2 that chases John through the sewer drain, its really only suitable for the main roads so what I tend to do is use the truck to take a specific trailer to the nearby town and then swap trucks in town to take the trailer the rest of the way to wherever the resources are going.

I'd like to reiterate. Plan your journey. There is a season pass available for the game, which is going to bring major content releases down the line, just to give you an idea on how much I love this game, the provided review copy didnt include the season pass, so I purchased it, so I'm ready for the new content to come out. I have seen a few reports of "major" glitches however I haven't experienced these myself and there are constant patches released for the game and the developers are really good at interacting with the community to let us know what is happening.

So to wrap this all up, I promise you if you try this game and you've played the others, you'll see the improvements and the massive content increase, and if you are a new player to this game... may your survival be long, and your crash be swift.