SnowRunner Year 1 vs Year 2 Pass: Which is best?

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In this SnowRunner Year 1 vs Year 2 Pass showdown, I list everything you get in each season so you can decide which is worth buying.

While money still refuses to grow on trees (rude!), I decided it was time for my Year 1 vs Year 2 Pass extravaganza. Because maybe you can (or only) want to buy one of them.

Now, this video has been on the cards for a while, but obviously it made sense to wait for the last of the Year 2 Pass – Season 8: Grand Harvest. So here we are with the pros and cons.

But first, some hopefully correct numbers: SnowRunner without any DLC content has 41 trucks plus two extra with the free Anniversary DLC. Then there are 12 maps across three regions – Michigan, Alaska and Russia.

The total truck number including all DLCs but excluding the Year 3 Pass equals 79. Or 78 if you count the fact the Navistar 5000-MV is not available to purchase on Epic. As for maps, the total is 31.

Kindly note that each Season of DLC can be bought separately, but then it means you cannot buy the year pass it belongs to at a later date. Although with a sale price the difference can be minimal.

Please note: This is the script from my YouTube video, click play above to watch or go here.

Year 1 vs Year 2 Pass: What do you get?

Starting with the Year 1 Pass, you get eight downloads – four of which are full seasons of content and the other four are vinyl wrap packs that give you snazzy paintjobs. The total truck count is 11.

The four seasons are: Season 1: Search & Recover, Season 2: Explore & Expand, Season 3: Locate & Deliver and Season 4: New Frontiers.

Season 1: Search & Recover

Season 1: Search & Recover was the first map pack, released in two parts, and is still one of the toughest. The main aim is to find and deliver a fallen World War II bomber.

Based in Russia, the two maps are Lake Kovd and Imandra. The former has a large body of water to the northeast and introduces breakable ice that relatively few non-mod trucks can get out of.

Once you know a few good routes and use the central ice plain for most journeys, life is not so tough. Imandra, on the other hand, is far tougher. More of the map is split by water, deadly ice and dense forest.

You need to open the garage here, which is no easy task. Even with my video guide. Suffice to say, Season 1 is an unforgiving experience with a steep learning curve.

It is perhaps not the most content-rich season, but it is one of the best for truckers who want to be tested and is memorable. You also get a Tayga King paintjob and, controversially, the AWD upgrade for the GMC MH9500.

As for trucks, you get the fun but not top-tier TUZ 16 “Actaeon”, chunky TUZ 108 “Warthog” and the Ford F 750 CrewCab. One of the best scouts for long range drives, remote truck repairs and refuel rescues.

Season 2: Explore & Expand

Season 2: Explore & Expand, meanwhile, puts us on a plane headed for Canada. But there is no time for maple syrup, ice hockey and other Canadian stereotypes as your job is to restore a multi-processing plant.

Season 2 features two maps – part-snow, part-dirt, 100 per cent pretty. The first is Flooded Foothills, a series of landmasses separated by unforgiving rivers and framed by snow-capped mountains.

Then we have Big Salmon Peak, which is a snowy paradise that can be as brutal as it is pretty. Some love its mass-cargo tasks, others find them repetitive. Either way, it offers a unique and gruelling set of challenges.

You also get three unusual trucks. The sizable Caterpillar 770G is necessary for success here but little else. Meanwhile, the CAT TH357 telehandler is a good scout and can be amusing to mess around with. Jousting anyone?

Star of the show, though, is the KRS 58 “Bandit”. This is an off-road truck with excellent capabilities and no need to unlock it – just watch out for its tippy moments.

Season 2 also includes new vehicle skins for the International Scout 800, International Loadstar 1700 and new customisation options. New contracts were also added in Alaska and Taymyr.

Season 3: Locate & Deliver

Next we have Season 3: Locate & Deliver, which takes place in Wisconsin of North America. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, involves constructing a paper factory – hope it doesn’t blow away (sigh) – and a railway connection.

There is quite a bit to do here and the summer maps are enjoyable if a little repetitive in places. Black Badger Lake loves H2O and deep mud, while Grainwoods River is more tree-heavy and you get to drag a train.

Truck-wise, expect the ‘long boi’ International Paystar 5600TS for up to three slots of cargo delivery convenience before you attach a trailer as well as the versatile Pacific P512 PF and the not-so-American Boar 45318.

Oh and let’s not forget three new vehicle skins, new stickers and new cosmetics.

Season 4: New Frontiers

And last of the Year 1 Pass, we have SnowRunner’s most challenging DLC. Season 4: New Frontiers. Taking place in deepest, darkest Russia, Amur Oblast introduces four tough-as-old-boots maps: Urska River, Cosmodrome, Chernokamensk and Northern Aegis Installation.

Unlocking the garage in Cosmodrome is quite the task in itself, especially as Urska River is riddled with tricky water crossings, inconvenient tree stumps, day-ruining ice and some of the depest snow in game.

Things do get easier with time once you learn the shortcuts and bring decent trucks, especially as Cosmodrome is less brutal. Once you clear away some obstructions.

Unlocking the Chernokamensk garage is also not an easy job, but the area is generally more forgiving and has various interesting sights to discover.

Nothing quite readies you for the Northern Aegis Installation though, which is currently SnowRunner’s toughest map. Here is where trucking dreams go to die and bad preparation and decisions are punished hard.

Such is the difficulty level, you could argue it should have been released later. However, you do get a lot of hours of content as well as the top-tier, nigh-on-unstoppable Zikz 605R. And the not-so-useful Khan 317 “Sentinel”.

That 605R alone makes the Year 1 Pass tempting. Plus the finale of Amur is one of the best in the game – if you have the skills and patience.

New cosmetics, addons, stickers and skins are included too.

Year 2 Pass: What do you get?

And now for the Year 2 Pass. Included are another four phases of content: Season 5: Build & Dispatch, Season 6: Haul & Hustle, Season 7: Compete & Conquer and Season 8: Grand Harvest.

You get nine new maps across four regions, which are Don in Russia, Maine and Tennessee in the US and the Belozersk Glades in Central Asia.

Also added are 11 new trucks, two of which come as part of the included Tatra Dual Pack. The first is the Tatra 805, which is a cute scout that can handle off-road life.

Then there is the Tatra T813, which is an eight-wheeler heavy truck that is pretty potent.

Season 5: Build & Dispatch

But first, Season 5: Build & Dispatch. Another Russian map, this time you get to restore a Tatra factory – which features an enjoyable testing ground facility.

Don is comprised two maps, Factory Grounds and the Antonovskiy Nature Reserve. Both are unusually compact in size but offer a good challenge and a refreshing change of pace – especially if you have just survived Amur.

The Autumnal colour scheme is easy on the eye, too, and the two included trucks can be used effectively here and elsewhere. Of the two, the Tatra Force T815-7 is more potent but the Tatra Phoenix is at least interesting.

Season 6: Haul & Hustle

One of my personal favourites up next, Season 6: Haul & Hustle. Based in Maine of the US, we get two big maps with pretty landscapes, an enjoyable difficulty curve and numerous landmarks including some that Stephen King fans will appreciate.

Things kick off in The Lowland, where – a first for SnowRunner – garage functionality such as vehicle repairs cannot be used until you complete certain tasks.

Getting around this map can be challenging, given the deep mud, snow and powerful watery areas, and things get pretty tight as you head into the forest. Skillful driving is therefore required.

Yellowrock National Forest is the second map, a place where snow is much more prominent but also some good-old tarmac. This can lure you into a false sense of security, as going off piste can be gruelling.

Establishing a forestry base is made somewhat easier with one of the two included trucks, the Aramatsu Forrester. Thanks to its logging friendly ways and grabby claw, this is a vehicle that can come in handy for the numerous tree-herding tasks in other maps.

Season 6’s second truck is the Tayga 6455B, which takes effort to get but then you would likely complete the tasks anyway. In my versus video, I found the Tayga 6436 is better but it is a close call. Both are definitely top-tier.

Season 7: Compete & Conquer

Next in the Year 2 Pass is the smallest update – likely because of what was (and still is) going on in the world. Season 7: Compete & Conquer has one map known as the Burning Mill and it includes racing. Either against the clock or other players.

In my review, I admitted to having a good time. The map itself is pleasingly designed, offers unique gameplay challenges and its bog-standard deliveries are satisfying. It is just that there is too little of it and it felt as if Saber Interactive could have done more with the Forza-esque theme.

Nor does it help that the two included trucks (the Azov 43-191 “Sprinter” and Gor BY-4) are not exactly stellar. Designed for racing and speed, the 43-191 is not even that fast and it is severely limited in the addons and towing departments.

Meanwhile, the Gor BY-4 is a somewhat useful and somewhat fun scout ultimately outclassed by other paid and free trucks.

It is worth noting that a few tasks require co-op play for the full 100 per cent completion accolade, which may put off some players.

Season 8: Grand Harvest

And lastly we come to Season 8: Grand Harvest, the biggest of the Year 2 Pass expansions and by far the most comprehensive. Three trucks, four Amur-sized maps and 107 tasks – this is where Saber Interactive got back into the groove. As if to make up for Season 7.

The maps – Crossroads, The Institute, Heartlands and HarvestCorp, bathed during the golden hours by beautiful orange sunsets and sunrises – are snow-less, seemingly flat and feature an unusual amount of tarmac.

But complacency comes before falling over. Shortcuts can be met with moguls the size of small houses, sticky mud, stealthy tree stumps and densely packed forest. Even some seemingly relaxed mud trails can ruin your day and generally longer journeys mean more chance of running out of fuel.

However, the overall difficulty is medium at most and so the door is open to using a wider variety of trucks and lower levels of frustration.

Cargo delivery is only part of the Season 8 experience – there is the need to farm too. Driving up and down fields in tractors, basically. By the end you may never want to see another potato, but overall the Belozersk Glades maps are well-designed and visually interesting.

Season 8: Grand Harvest is decent for trucks, too, as the Kirovets K-7M modern tractor and the Kirovets K-700 from the 1960s make decent repair and rescue steeds (unlock guide here). Akin to the Caterpillar 745C.

Then there is the Step 39331 “Pike”, which only has 46-inch tyres (smaller than the cream of the crop in SnowRunner). However, always-on AWD and Diff Lock plus versatility and sheer trucking power make it a safe pair of hands. Or should that be tyres?

A few extra map points of interest would have been nice, but overall Season 8 is the DLC that makes it harder to choose between the Year 1 and Year 2 Passes. If you have not already decided to buy both.

Year 1 vs Year 2 Pass: What is NOT included?

Now, before we get to the verdict there are various DLCs that can be had outside of the Year 1 and Year 2 Passes. Meaning, you need to spend extra money to get them. Except for the free Anniversary DLC, which features the International HX 520 and CAT CT681. Highly versatile steeds. These are the:

• Land Rover Dual Pack
• Rezvani Hercules
• Crocodile Pack
• Navistar 5000-MV (except on Epic Games)
• Clasico Pack
• High Roller Pack
• Jeep Dual Pack
• GMC Brigadier Pack
• Western Star 49X
• Western Star Wolf Pack

You do not need any of these DLCs to be successful in SnowRunner, even with the standalone game. But if you crave variety, buying all of them adds an extra 16 trucks.

Personally, I prefer to buy larger vehicles as the standard scouts are good. That smoke-puffing Navistar 5000-MV is powerful and of the three Western Stars in the Wolf Pack, two are surprisingly capable.

So which is best?

So then, which year pass is worth buying? Well, SnowRunner offers many hours of gameplay if you give it half a chance. Its relaxing pace and satisfying driving interspersed with total misery and excruciating pain make for a long and rewarding challenge.

SnowRunner really is good value on its own – especially if you have Xbox Game Pass or can wait for a sale. Think at least 100 hours of playtime, probably a lot more.

With that said, if you want to empty the piggybank and buy just one pass, I think I would go for Year 1. I love the challenge of Amur and Imandra, while Canada and Wisconsin are both content-rich. Plus that Zikz 605R is good in all maps. Maybe too good.

The Year 2 Pass is still worth a look though. Even with Season 7’s divisive racing, there is a lot of fun trucking to be had and good trucks too. Season 8 is especially epic although how epic depends on how much you love potatoes.

Whichever way you go, expect to tip over more than in any other game.

Of course, at some point we will need to decide on whether to get the Year 3 Pass – but that, ladies and gentleman, is for another day. Because at the time of making this Year 1 vs Year 2 Pass video, we only know the season names.

And that is it for my Year 1 vs Year 2 Pass article. Be sure to subscribe to the Tribe, like the video and, if buying any DLC via Epic Games, enter ATRIBECALLEDCARS at checkout to give me a little financial boost.