RoadCraft is the latest MudRunner offshoot from Saber Interactive. It takes the “how to get there” puzzle of the Runner games and lets you build roads, chop down trees, create bridges and more to rebuild areas devastated by catastrophic weather events. It’s big, a ton of fun in co-op, and a serene but slow experience solo.
Vwoom Vwoom, here comes da pickup twuck
RoadCraft is a Tonka truck kid’s dream. You have dump trucks, mulchers, pavers, bulldozers, cranes, transport, cargo trucks, and more as your tools to rebuild areas that have been destroyed by massive weather events. The game takes its time, starting you off slowly as you prepare an area with a few “easy” jobs.
When solo, that means moving every piece of equipment yourself, hopping back and forth between them to line them all up. It can be frustrating as you’re learning how each item and job works. Once it clicks the game becomes one of my favorite podcast experiences in all of gaming. Finding out how to get from point to point is the Runner series at its prime.
RoadCraft changes that up to include “how do I make getting from point to point as easy as possible for my crew”. You’ll dump loads of sand, flatten it, lay asphalt on top, and roll it all nice and flat to create roads. You’ll load steel and concrete with your mobile crane onto the back of a cargo truck. After bringing it over and dropping it in the right spot, bridges are built, allowing you to send convoys for parts or to deliver needed supplies. Fighting you the entire time is a brilliant and occasionally hilarious new physics system.
A Physics Sandbox
To start most objectives, you’ll take your Scout Truck out and have to reach a specific area of the map. Getting there is anything but easy, as even at the best of times, these dirt roads are a muddy hellscape. The Scout Truck has a scanner to let you know how deep any puddles or rivers you have to cross are, along with a powerful tow winch.
Gone from the series is any type of lasting vehicle damage. Now, the worst that can happen is an engine stall-out if you flip over. Instead of having to tow your vehicle back up with another one, you can hold up on the d-pad and “recover” it at any time to a few specific spots on each map.
I know it’s blasphemous, but as someone primarily playing solo during this review, it was a godsend. Navigating around this world as you repair it and send out convoys (more on that later) is time-consuming enough that any major vehicle damage would have only led to frustration for me. The job types can be finding an item and delivering it, specific repairs like gas pipelines for power stations, or even digging up the earth to run new power cables. Stripping trees is a blast with the game running decently on my Xbox Series X.
Console vs. PC
Console is 30fps by default, with this CPU-intensive title needing a lot of horsepower for its new physics engine. There is a 60fps mode that held its framerate well at the cost of a LOT of pop-in. As this isn’t a twitch shooter I think the framerate sacrifice is actually worth it here, as the game looks noticeably better in quality mode.
I had code a week earlier on PC than I did on console, so a lot of my review footage will be on there. It ran at roughly 100fps maxed out at 4k on my beefy rig, but is not Play Anywhere at launch, nor is it in Game Pass like the Expeditions: A MudRunner Game was.
If there is a major construction job you can think of it is probably in RoadCraft. Co-op mode supports up to four players and it ran great the few times I got to do it. Having friends around makes the act of loading a truck with a crane far easier to manage. You can do all of it solo, it just takes more time and tinkering as you hop between each vehicle on the fly.
You Are (Not) Your Own Boss
In RoadCraft, you are the owner of a company who is constantly bossed around by a person on the radio as far as what you need to do. It works fine, and the voice acting isn’t annoying. There are 8 maps each listed as 4 km² large. As you navigate these areas, you’ll clear a fog of war that covers everything up early on.
Most objectives have you clearing a path or fixing something to allow you to set a convoy. Those convoys will go from one point to another in a series of movements that you determine. If they get stuck in the mud, fall off a bridge, or can’t make it for any reason, you’ll have to determine the weak point in their route and fix it up.
The game does a great job of slowly introducing you to new job types at a constant pace. They’ll need new vehicles, of which you get a “rusty” version to start with. To progress in the game, you’ll need to complete objectives and earn experience points. Get enough points and your rating goes up, eventually unlocking the next map. Alongside all that, you get cash for each job, which can be used to purchase new vehicles.
The music is serene, and the bugs are generally hilarious. The main one I saw was the catapult bushes. Now and then, a vehicle will hit some brush on the side of the road and be propelled thousands of feet away. It can be annoying to have to recover your vehicle but damn if it isn’t funny when in the moment.
Wrapping Things Up
RoadCraft is a ton of fun. It smartly evolves the MudRunner series, taking one of my favorite physics-based puzzle games and adding in some deliciously creative chaos.’
Review code for Xbox Series and Steam was provided by the publisher
RoadCraft
Played on
Xbox Series X & Steam
PROS
- New physics engine
- Job and objective variety
- Progression
- Map Variety
CONS
- Physics Bugs
- Console Performance Mode
