Snowrunner Review: Trucks Aren’t So Dull Anymore

The best way to get around is to drive a truck from point A to point B, and start over! This is pretty much the main gameplay loop of SnowRunner which, despite a certain “hype”, is aimed at a rather specific audience, like its predecessor. But the Saber Interactive title actually turns out to be much better than Spintires Mudrunner. The biggest objective flaws have been fixed, the game is more welcoming and, with the arrival of snow, the terrain in which you can get bogged down is more varied than ever. Lovers of mud, winches and board delivery can therefore darken with closed eyes on this episode, which undoubtedly surpasses its predecessors.

Originally released in 2014, Spintires was subsequently taken over by Focus and Saber Interactive, who finally released a certain Spintires Mudrunner at the end of 2017. Today, these same two entities offer us SnowRunner, which could well have been called Mudrunner 2. Because the arrival of snow does not mean the disappearance of mud. It’s gone again for hours skating in questionable terrain, using winches to get out of the most desperate situations, and delivering more and more cargo.

First of all, let us specify that those who expected from this Mudrunner 2 (which does not say its name) better scripting will be at their expense. There are no characters to meet, nor cutscenes worthy of the name, nor really a storyline.

The game starts with a simple little text informing us that a catastrophic flood has occurred and that our help is needed to repair a bridge. Some players may find that a real storyline and a real staging would be unnecessary for what appears to be a simple truck simulation, but they would be wrong. Because in reality, SnowRunner can almost be considered an RPG.

First of all, we are entitled to a semi-open world, made up of three main regions: Michigan, Alaska and Taimyr. S ‘ it is useless to present the first two, we will specify all the same that the third is located in central Siberia. The theme of cold is present, but do not believe that the game takes place entirely under the snow. On this point, the title and the cover are slightly misleading, and that’s good!

We are delighted to find the muddy terrain of the previous episode and wade through more varied materials than ever. Roads, earth, mud, thick mud, water, rocky scree, snow, and ice form the range of paths to be traveled.
Like the first Ubisoft action-RPG, SnowRunner offers us watchtowers to unlock to gradually reveal the map. These towers are often located in hard-to-reach environments, but conquering them can dispel the fog of war, and thus reveal the location of objectives to be completed, upgrades to be picked up, and vehicles and more. Trailers to be requisitioned.
The objectives can be of the Contracts, Tasks or Challenges type, which in other circumstances would be called main quests, side quests, and challenges. Even if the developers have tried to make an effort, the variety is not entirely there. Most of the time, the objectives are limited to picking up cargo at point A on board the correct vehicle, and delivering it to point B

Over the course of the missions completed, we gain money and experience, in order to buy new vehicles and increase our driver rank, which gives us access to ever-larger trucks, to spare parts. evermore equipment and even additional objectives. Gas stations allow you to refuel, while garages are used not only to repair damaged vehicles, but also to improve our toys (engines, gearboxes, suspensions, tires, etc.), to personalize them, or to buy. And sell more vehicles.

There are still about forty in all, which is more than the number of weapons in some RPGs. At this point in the test, you may be thinking that this analogy has gone on long enough and that in addition, it is half-fucked up since there are no enemies to fight in SnowRunner. Think again! Enemies, you will meet plenty of them. Except that here they take the form of a badly placed rock, a ford a little too deep, a marsh that we did not expect to find at the end of a bend, a muddy area too wide or too steep.

Beyond the somewhat too basic factor quests, it is indeed in the driving on the difficult ground that lies the heart of the gameplay. not expect to find at the end of a bend, in a muddy area that is too extensive or on a slope that is too steep. Beyond the somewhat too basic factor quests, it is indeed in the driving on the difficult ground that lies the heart of the gameplay. not expect to find at the bend of a bend, in a muddy area that is too extensive or on a slope that is too steep. Beyond the somewhat too basic factor quests, it is indeed in the driving on the difficult ground that lies the heart of the gameplay.

The physics is very well managed, and you will have to use the various tools at your disposal wisely so as not to find yourself permanently stuck. Here, we are fighting with handbrake, low speed, all-wheel drive and differential lock. But your most precious ally remains the winch, which you can hang on a nearby tree, in order to more easily extract the vehicle from the mess in which you have inadvertently placed it.
This daily struggle that made all the salt in Spintires Mudrunner is even more gratifying in SnowRunner because it has progressed on many points. The graphics are much better, the cockpit view finally looks like something, the camera is now behaving correctly, and the game is overall clearer and more accessible.

It feels good ! However, no need to cry out for a miracle and get on the hype train too quickly because the series still has some room for improvement. Beyond the lack of real scripting, we can for example, regret that the cooperative mode commits a huge blunder: the progress made during a game is only saved for the host of the session! We can also deplore here and there the presence of some bugs (for example, an invalid contract while all the conditions are met), some of which are downright inherited from the very first Spintires (the poorly recognized steering wheels in particular).

The publisher and the development studio promise us that patches are on the way. There is more to hope that they do