RoadCraft first impressions after 50 Hours – is it worth playing?

50 hours in and I am still hooked on RoadCraft – here is what I like so far and where things break down.

It is the video I know many of you have been waiting for, my first impressions of RoadCraft. Not RoadRunner. We are talking about Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment’s latest title that follows on from SnowRunner and Expeditions: A MudRunner Game.

Having been given the full version early, I now have 50 hours of gameplay under my trucking cap. Why not a full review then? Because I have yet to finish every task and explore every map. Plus early updates are likely at hand.

I have, however, unlocked 24 vehicles of around 40 at launch, basically finished four maps and explored three more. So here is everything I know so far — the good, the bad and the muddy — about RoadCraft. Including how often you will yell at the AI drivers.

Available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, RoadCraft launches with eight maps. Or is that 10 (according to the game save)? I have basically finished Precipice, Aftermath, Sunken, and Incommunicado. I’ve also played Deluge, Sojourn and Sandswept. Only the Kernel, seeming the last of the eight, remains locked.

Please note: This is the script from my YouTube video. To watch, press play above or follow this link.

Location, location, location

You can expect three biomes – desert, highland, and forest and mountain – that span 28 square kilometres. That is 17.4 square miles of muddy, rocky, sandy, watery, untidy and tippy terrain. All for £35 or equivalent for the standard RoadCraft version. Pre-order for the highly useful Aramatsu Bowhead 30T sand-slinger.

So what is the headline feature? Building roads. You can dump sand, flatten it, tarmac over it then squish it down until it is smoother than a smooth thing. In doing so, you repair, rebuild and restore natural disaster-struck places. If only for a sense of satisfaction and a Christmas card from the locals.

Said roads can be built manually or with some point-and-click AI trickery. Which does not always work, but more on that later.

The RoadCraft world is certainly more in-depth than its peers. For example, tree stumps are not just impassable nightmare fuel objects, they can be mulched or pushed over if the vehicle is big enough. Or have their roots dug out the ground by a bulldozer. Tracked vehicles are a thing too. Finally.

Right on tracks

All but the largest trees, meanwhile, can be cut and processed for collecting logs. Piles of sand can be dumped to make brown sticky holes driveable. Bridges can be made from concrete, metal or wood to create epic shortcuts that save you time and misery.

Why bother? Well, as things stand, maps are separate so making it easy to go between them is pointless. The AI is, however, prone to driving terrible trucks that have all the off-roading ability of an arthritic whale.

They will usually get stuck if your planned route even deviates slightly off your fresh steaming tarmac or has soggy uneven surfaces along the way. That means no experience, money or fuel/Recovery Tokens for you.

Some routes run multiple times, adding to your resource pile for a while – others you only need to do once and you can help the AI trucks with a gentle push.

As you deliver cargo, clear pathways and remove debris, buildings go from ruins to functional, giving you access to new crafting potential. Completion of some tasks also dramatically change the environment – draining a flooded mine to reveal the leftover mining equipment beneath being one example.

RTS-ish

RoadCraft is by no means a real-time strategy simulator though. The AI delivery routes, while satisfying to craft, play into a basic and not-so-impactful resource system.

Resources do not transfer between maps as part of a global economy nor are they especially time-consuming or difficult to acquire yourself. Recycling the correct materials is the way to go – the bigger the object, the more steel beams, metal pipes and concrete slabs you get in return.

You do not even get to choose where to build each building – even your base that is basically a garage with another name. Here you can retain vehicles from anywhere on the map, buy new trucks and store resources to access across all bases. Or drive said resources across the map if you want added realism.

With that said, you can usually choose the order in which to restore each facility. Sand Quarries are worth prioritising, as once open you can refill sand for road building in remote areas of the map. As opposed to a lot of back and forth repetitiveness made more palatable by crossplay co-op for up to four players, with voice chat now a thing.

Is the driving any good?

What about the driving? Well, compared with SnowRunner, things are a mixed bag. On the one hand, the tarmac handling is so much better. All vehicles I have unlocked stay straight – even at speed. Imagine that. They also handle differently to each other, complete with unique quirks, characteristics and uses.

The way vehicles interact with the environment is also improved, they sound better and offer bags of detail on the inside and outside. You have a much bigger impact on the nature around you – for better and for worse.

On the other hand, some elements have been watered down. You only have one low gear, AWD and Diff Lock may as well be left on because there is no truck fuel consumption to worry about and vehicle customisation and upgrades are nowhere to be seen. Except choosing your trucking company name and colours. This is where RoadCraft and SnowRunner go their separate ways.

The reality, however, is that off-road driving is still a huge part of the experience. Not just to take over when the AI is being a bit special, but also to scout these behemoth maps and their intricate pathways.

If anything, taming the big outdoors is potentially more challenging without being able to put on the biggest tyres, the biggest engine and increase ground clearance on one of a few particular meta trucks – SnowRunner style. Hell, even cargo is no longer slot-based – just load up as much as you can and hope for the best.

The Muel T1 Cargo Crane Truck is highly useful because many tasks require cargo delivery and crane work. Repairing pipes, for instance, or dropping off a generator for temporary power until the power station comes back online. A task you do by planting underground cables in what looks like a winning contestant from Robot Wars.

Without upgrades, you not only appreciate the Muel T1 more – you eventually, in theory, master its quirks. You learn the hard way what mud it can handle and the stuff it cannot. And that not all shortcuts are short.

It does help that some trucks have multiple variations. The Kronenwerk L-34 is available early for flattening sand and the destruction of asphalt, but it can also be had as a log forwarder, log grabber or a cargo truck with a blade for pushing debris out the way.

What about the visuals?

What about the visuals? Using my no-longer-flagship RTX 4090, RoadCraft looks fantastic and only in a couple of puddles have I experienced any noticeable slow-down. There might not be as much biome variety as I was hoping for, but the level of detail is impressive. The lighting, weather and improved sound effects going a long way in adding realism and enhancing the immersion.

So much so, in fact, that exploration helps keep you around. So far, I have driven through eerily quiet and spooky derelict towns, abandoned quarries strewn with rusty plant machinery and pretty autumnal forests separated by vast expanses of satisfyingly reflective water. Some Dakar Desert Rally sand a welcome change – complete with some realistic heat shimmer.

It helps that there is a free 4K DLC (26GB in size) for those who play at 4K and have the PC hardware to tame the resolution. Though, honestly, the improvement over the standard maxed-out settings not immediately obvious. More testing needed, perhaps.

Some of these maps are so damaged by natural disasters and have such height variation that plotting routes can be challenging. But thanks to the cleverer physics engine, you mostly have the freedom to forge your own path. I was getting tired of going all the way round a big river in one map so I spent an hour crafting a custom road and bridge – and it paid off as the AI could also happily use it. On the flip-side, pre-existing tarmac roads cannot be broken up.

Now, just because you can build tarmac roads, do not think for one second there is a lack of cargo-based off-road driving enjoyment. One task has you delivering a laughably top-heavy item to a power plant and the route is elevated, rocky, hilly, single-track heaven. It feels like prime SnowRunner. Keeping upright while enjoying the beautiful views of nature and a castle – this is RoadCraft at some of its best.

Given the £35 or equivalent in your currency, RoadCraft seems like solid value. While I would love to see more variety in terms of the things you can do later on, those who enjoy the road building premise in the demo will relish more of the same on a much grander scale.

The curiosity over what you will see next and which trucks you will unlock or find and how they will benefit you (or not) compared with your existing fleet do a solid job of keeping you hooked. Though, as my later full review may show, there is potential for those new game mechanics to get boring.

So what is not so good?

It just seems a shame you cannot enhance the AI trucks with better tyres or at least a custom paintjob. Or upgrade your buildings more. Or have more AI routes going on, so that there is incentive to be more precise with your routes and widen them to avoid collisions. Perhaps that comes later in the last four maps – I hope so.

There are also some little things that need to be ironed out and streamlined such as the controls, which obviously are going to be somewhat complicated but I dislike the inconsistency between cranes, for example, and how things work if using a steering wheel. More on that in another video.

I also miss manual headlights and night driving which – so far at least – are missing. Though the addition of windscreen wipers (also automatic) go some way in making things right for those who love the cockpit view.

As for multiplayer, I played a whole lot of co-op – other videos coming soon – and all was well. Minus a few visual sync issues, Paul and I built roads and rescued each other after tipping over for tens of hours without issue. PC to PC, mind you, so cross-play or console sessions will likely be the real test. Paul did lose his game save progress at one point, mind you.

The verdict (so far)

So, my first impressions verdict, should you buy it? Well, 50 hours of enjoyable gameplay that has left me wanting me more says yes. There is just enough new and different to SnowRunner for RoadCraft to stand on its own, yet also enough driving overlap to make it familiar and satisfying.

Some driving purists will understandably dislike the watering down of certain elements, but there is still plenty of driving challenge and satisfaction to be had and, as I suspect has been done on purpose, that means room has been left for SnowRunner 2 to trundle into town. Whenever that may be.

And here I shall leave my RoadCraft first impressions video. There is still a lot more to talk about so subscribe to A Tribe Called Cars for my more in-depth review, guides, top 10s, tips, tricks, secrets and some co-op stupidity.