TESTED: SNOWRUNNER GAME
A DRIVING GAME WHERE GOING FAST ISN’T THE POINT? SNOWRUNNER IS ACTUALLY A BREATH OF FRESH AIR.
SNOWRUNNER – the much-anticipated follow-up to the niche off-roading sim Mudrunner – is out, and while the core experience of plugging through virtual mud is largely the same, there’s substantial innovation and improvement everywhere else that makes this more than just a rehash of the same ol’ game engine with new vehicles, textures and environments.
Per the title, a large part of the off-road adventures in Snowrunner take place in the frosty climes of Alaska, but that’s just one of the three enormous maps on offer in the game. Did you think Mudrunner was a bit too short, too onedimensional or too spatially limited for your liking? Well, Snowrunner is the polar opposite.
We’ll forgive you if you didn’t think much of Mudrunner. The vehicle selection was almost entirely made up of decommissioned Soviet military trucks, almost every map resembled the worst kind of mosquito-infested Siberian swamp, and the only mission was delivering logs from a stockpile to a sawmill.
If Mudrunner was our only experience of Russia, we’d surmise that the country’s entire GDP came from turning tree trunks into planks. It was very log-centric.
But now we have Snowrunner, and after the bleak mudscape of its predecessor it is a veritable breath of fresh air.
There are now three different environments to drive around in: Michigan, Alaska and Siberia’s Taymyr Peninsula. You’ll likely spend the bulk of your time in Michigan as it has the most missions available (a whopping 82), and it’s a good primer before you get into the slippery and treacherous Alaska map.
Alaska also has plenty to keep you busy with 74 missions in that map alone, while Taymyr follows up with 59 missions. On top of that, the playable area is simply gigantic. Mudrunner offered up 8.25km² of swampland to enjoy … Snowrunner delivers a huge 30km². That’s not quite GTA5 levels of freeroam area (that title gives you an amazing 127km²), but it’s massive considering you’re never travelling quickly.
And then there are the missions. There’s now huge variety in what you can do with the vehicles, with eight distinct mission types from delivery, rescue, refuelling, repairing and more, and 21 different kinds of cargo. Is a town running out of food? A bridge needs repair? Oil workers need supplies? You can help them all, and the variety in the scenarios makes you feel like you’re not just alone in a big map, but that your actions have a positive effect on your environment.
You even have a physical influence on the map, depending on which missions you select. Landslides and downed bridges can be fixed with your assistance, which removes impediments to travel and opens up new areas of the map.
As for the driving, well, if you’re accustomed to cutting fast laps in driving games then Snowrunner will definitely be a big change in pace. It’s not much of a challenge then, crawling around in low range? Well, actually, yeah it is. In fact, this is one of the more challenging driving games around thanks to the game’s simulation of mud physics.
That’s right, the ground you roll across is far from solid. In
fact, unless it’s a tarmac road then almost every surface can be deformed by your vehicle as you use it. Do you use a particular track a lot? You might notice it’s getting more and more rutted with each trip, and if it’s muddy you’ll see that surface move around the wheels and chassis in a realistic way.
Stop on soft ground for any length of time and your truck slowly starts to sink up to its axles – faster, if carrying heavy cargo. It’s mesmerising to watch the physics engine do its thing, and you’ll quickly learn that ploughing headfirst into mudholes is never a great idea, as is applying full power when stuck and just churning up the dirt into an even bigger mess.
You will get bogged. It’s only a matter of time. Thankfully you have a winch to help out, and provided there’s a solid object to hook it to then it’s normally possible to extricate yourself. After a while you’ll get good at winching while moving to sustain momentum, winching from tree-to-tree like a Chevrolet-driving Spiderman.
Other times you’ll get horrifically stuck, but here’s the thing: you’re never really driving just one car. You can switch between every vehicle you own on the map in an instant, meaning you can hop into another vehicle and drive it over to the stranded one. Attach the winch, yank it out and you’re back on your way without having to respawn in your garage – which could be a massive setback depending on where you need to deliver cargo to.
Recovering stuck vehicles is hugely satisfying in itself, and akin to solving a puzzle. Sometimes all you’ll need to do is switch into all-wheel drive, low range and activate diff locks to get out, but not every vehicle has that. In fact, the starter truck is just a 4x2 with open diffs, and it gets stuck a lot.
Replacing it won’t be a problem, though. You’ll come across new vehicles around the map, which you can then add to your personal fleet after repairing or refuelling them, and if that’s not enough then there’s a menu of 40 vehicles to buy – 18 of them officially licensed reproductions of real-world vehicles.
There are also plenty of modifications to make those cars and trucks your own. Some are cosmetic, but most change the capability of a vehicle substantially. Things like grippy mud tyres make a massive difference, as do differential lockers, snorkels, cranes, fuel tanks, bigger engines and more.
Spend a bit of money and you’ll soon have an unstoppable cargo-hauling rig, although every vehicle is at the mercy of fuel economy… which is universally terrible. Watch your fuel burn and be clever about the route you take, lest you run out of juice and have to respawn far from your objective.
Siphoning fuel from one vehicle to another is an option however. As always in Snowrunner, there’s no one ‘right way’ to complete a mission, it’s all down to your own ability to plan and execute. Couple that free-form ability to gameplay with the sheer volume of missions available to you, and Snowrunner should keep you occupied for months.
Avid offroaders might also poke holes in some of the dynamic modelling, especially as jamming the brakes on while rolling down a mud-slick incline isn’t anywhere near as fraught with danger as it is in real life. On the flipside, it’s difficult enough keeping your off-roader shiny-side up without having such ultra-realistic braking physics, and while the nearmagical ability of the winch isn’t exactly accurate either, the game would be a whole lot less fun if it was.
How fun can an off-roading sim be? Even if you don’t identify as one of the 4x4 crowd, there’s a good chance you’ll find plenty to enjoy in Snowrunner.
RECOVERING STUCK VEHICLES IS HUGELY SATISFYING IN ITSELF, AND AKIN TO SOLVING A PUZZLE