Genre
Simulator
Publisher
Focus Home Interactive
Publisher in Russia
No
Developer
Minimum Requirements
Processor Intel Core i3-9100 3.6 GHz / AMD Ryzen 3 1300X 3.4 GHz, 8 GB RAM, video card with DirectX 11 support and 2 GB memory, for example NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 / AMD Radeon R7 370, 20 GB hard drive
Recommended Requirements
Intel Core i7-10700 2.9 GHz / AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz processor, 16 GB RAM, DirectX 11 graphics card and 6 GB memory, such as NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
release date
March 5, 2024
Age limit
From 3 years
Localization
Text
Platforms
PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Played on PlayStation 5
After Focus Entertainment and Saber Interactive acquired the rights to the abandoned game Spintires, the project was turned into a whole series. First there was a relaunch called Spintires: MudRunner, then SnowRunner came out with many gameplay innovations, and now Expeditions: A MudRunner Game has appeared – a simulator similar to previous releases, in which the same idea was implemented in a slightly different way. In Expeditions, it seems that the developers managed to find a middle ground – although it also sometimes kills nerve cells, failures here do not cause the same irritation that arose during the passage of SnowRunner.
⇡#No logs
My fondest memories of SnowRunner involve hauling logs and boards on long flatbeds attached to the truck. When you spend 10 minutes driving to the other end of the map, pick up the cargo there, and then have to take it safe and sound somewhere where no one has gone before – getting stuck in the mud, grabbing every miserable tree with a winch and praying to all the gods for have a nice trip. Prayers did not always help – it was absolutely normal to roll over after twenty minutes, driving over a bump, and lose all the logs, so that you could then evacuate the car and start all over again.
In Expeditions, such cargo has been completely abandoned – there are no trailers at all, and we are mainly engaged in regional exploration, not transportation. You will visit Colorado, Arizona and the Carpathians, and everywhere you need to thoroughly study almost every corner. Install radio modules on mountain tops, hang camera traps on trees in places where animals go to drink (even though you can’t see the animals themselves), look for broken drones and take pictures of beautiful locations. Colorado is a small region, a kind of introductory one with five expeditions, but in Arizona and the Carpathians there are already 37 of them – there are very easy tasks, and there are very difficult ones. However, the matter is not limited to these “plot” (there is, of course, no plot) expeditions – in the process of research you come across several dozen more orders, so the content here is through the roof.
Despite the disappearance of trailers, the essence of the series has remained unchanged – it is an off-road driving simulator, where the vehicle reacts realistically to the surface, be it stones or dirt. If you pick up too much speed, the car may roll over when you hit a cobblestone. If you crash into a tree or rock, your car will be damaged. If you drive into the mud, the car will stall, in most cases leaving no chance of salvation if you don’t use help. You still need to prepare for trips: take spare fuel with you, otherwise the existing one will quickly go away when you turn on all-wheel drive, and also grab more spare parts for dangerous trips – and repair the engine, if necessary, and change the wheels. But if earlier preparation, plus or minus, was limited to this, then in Expeditions the possibilities have become noticeably greater.
Some expeditions lead to unexpected finds
⇡#Help is needed
In particular, you can put several anchors in your inventory. In SnowRunner, getting stuck in the mud often meant the end of the trip – if there were no trees nearby that could be caught with a winch, only a friend who had joined in co-op mode could save him. Now you can place the anchor in a chosen place outside the car (just not on rocks or in the water) and try to get out of an unpleasant situation with its help. This doesn’t make the game “casual” or simplify it too much – although hardcore fans probably won’t be happy with this option – but while driving you feel much more comfortable knowing that the anchor can help if something happens. Jacks are also useful – if the car has turned over and you are not allowed to use the winch, a jack allows you to quickly put the equipment on its wheels.
Another interesting feature is the ability to take a team of three specialists with you. Everyone has their own bonuses: with a hydrologist, the engine does not suffer damage from water, with a huntsman you get additional jacks or an extended winch, managers allow you to sell items found during the expedition at a higher price, with logisticians at outposts you find more fuel. For some people, “passives” are associated with binoculars and a drone – when you arrive in a new region, it is covered in the “fog of war,” so you constantly use these items for reconnaissance. You can, of course, drive around the gray dots on the map yourself, but the binoculars also allow you to find supply boxes, car parts, bonus tasks and other objects, including fords and places where parts can be used to build folding bridges. It’s scary to drive through them, but it’s better than trying to jump over a crevice at random.
Creepy bridges, but it’s advisable to overcome fear
The controls have also changed a bit. The ability to turn on all-wheel drive, lock the differential and switch to another gear remains in place, and now you can also change the tire pressure. Low pressure, for example, will make it easier to drive over rocks – however, this will lead to accelerated fuel consumption. And if you continue to drive like this, your tires will begin to get damaged. All this is not so scary – usually you only have to open the tire inflation menu in the most extreme cases and return the wheels to normal in about half a minute. But it’s great that the game has another opportunity to escape from an unpleasant situation, in addition to portable anchors and jacks.
To avoid having to rely only on pressure, you need to pay attention to upgrading your cars. There are even more details here than in SnowRunner: engines that influence specific power, gearboxes for all occasions, and various types of tires. To purchase many parts, you not only need to collect the required amount, but also complete the specified expedition, so, for example, you won’t quickly unlock cooler winches.
You use binoculars often – with them it is much easier to plot the path to the next goal on the map
And some of the details are scattered throughout the locations, and for some reason the developers decided to complicate the already difficult gameplay. You can see the details with binoculars, and you can also detect them with a metal detector if you install it on the roof, but they are not marked on the map. On some trips, I accidentally saw a part through binoculars, but I couldn’t waste time on unnecessary trips due to the small supply of fuel and tools – I had to roughly remember where it was, and after completing the expedition, launch the free mode and go to that place.
There are other oddities and shortcomings in the game, some of which migrated here from the previous part. The map, for example, has not become any more convenient – in particular, when you open it, in half the cases the cursor begins to go somewhere far away, showing a randomly selected object or task. And when you are preparing for the next expedition, you don’t see exactly where it begins and at which outpost is best to start. If something happens, you can teleport for free to a more convenient place (here this is called evacuation), but still time is wasted. Although this is nothing compared to situations when, when opening the warehouse menu, the game freezes for ten seconds – although sometimes thirty; in SnowRunner I thought this was due to the weak hardware of the PS4, and now the same thing is repeated in the new game on PS5. Not to mention graphical bugs – the textures of the ground suddenly become soapy, then disappear altogether, making it difficult to understand what surface you are driving on.
Here you will also have to save the poor souls in crashed and drowned cars.
***
Expeditions hasn’t significantly changed the formula of the series – an outsider probably won’t understand the difference between it and SnowRunner. But fans of these simulators will immediately appreciate that at least the disappearance of huge trailers with logs and boards makes the gameplay less annoying. And with consumables on expeditions you feel calmer and more confident. For fans of the series, this is a huge sandbox in which you can spend sleepless nights, exploring every corner and completing numerous tasks. It is very pleasing that the creators did not make the gameplay even more hardcore, but simplified it a little, without depriving the new product of the spirit of Spintires and without changing its key idea.
Advantages:
- the disappearance of trailers did not make the new part much easier, but it did make it more fun than SnowRunner;
- with anchors, jacks and other consumables, the game has become more accessible;
- the ability to take staff with you forces you to approach each outing more thoughtfully;
- huge regions with dozens of “story” expeditions and additional tasks;
- a fairly large fleet of vehicles and an extensive system of upgrades.
Flaws:
- although the new part of the series is not as merciless as the last one, the high difficulty may scare off the unprepared player;
- graphical bugs and interface problems identical to those in SnowRunner.
Graphics
All three regions are beautiful and quite diverse, but graphical bugs like disappearing and soapy textures spoil the impression. On the other hand, there are now flat tires, wet weights and other details that add realism.
Sound
Unremarkable music, just like in the last game. These simulators are best played with your own playlists – it’s a pity they didn’t add a radio.
Single player game
Three regions, two of which are huge, offer a variety of missions that are now more fun to complete with new tools and features.
Estimated completion time
About a hundred hours to complete all expeditions and additional assignments.
Group game
Co-op mode will be added with one of the next updates – it will be easier to complete tasks together.
General impression
Just as hardcore as the previous part of the series, but a more accessible and varied off-road driving simulator. The developers were able to find a middle ground: they did not significantly reduce the difficulty, and made unsuccessful attacks less annoying.
Rating: 8,0/10
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