RoadCraft - Review

Saber Interactive is a worldwide publisher and developer consisting of 13 studios located around the Americas and Europe. They will be no strangers to most people even with a modest interest in gaming due to their long list of successful titles including games such as Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2, World War Z, SnowRunner and Expeditions: A MudRunner Game. If you are a fan of SnowRunner and Expeditions, then their new game Roadcraft has most likely been on your radar for a while. Thanks to Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment we got our hands on the steering wheel before its upcoming release and put the game through its paces.

In RoadCraft, you assume the role of a construction company manager specializing in disaster recovery. The game offers a fleet of over 40 heavy equipment vehicles, including bulldozers, cranes, and trench diggers, to perform tasks such as debris removal, material transport, and infrastructure reconstruction. You can manually operate each vehicle or automate tasks by plotting routes for AI-controlled vehicles, enhancing efficiency in large-scale operations, these tasks can be performed solo or with up to 3 of your friends in the games drop in and out based co-op mode, which allows all players, not just the person hosting, the ability to save their progress in the game.

The game features eight expansive environments, each covering 4 km², presenting diverse environments and challenges. Environments such as wood, sand, and asphalt can be manipulated and transformed, powered by Saber Interactive's new physics engine, to rebuild roads and bridges.

The first thing you will notice when you jump into the game is Kelly, she is your handy representative at your company’s headquarters who will help guide you through what objectives need to be achieved in the game, it pays to listen to her as she can sometimes offer helpful clues to help you progress, she also has a bit of sass to her and loves cracking a joke. Though I did find her dialogue a bit cringey at times and her jokes fell a bit flat just like your drunk uncles attempts at humour at the last family gathering. Your first task is usually to take the scout vehicle and scout out the surrounding area for debris on roads and drive to the pre-determined spot to put down your operating base.  Sometimes this can be a very long drive and result in frustration as I found the vehicles controls very twitchy and if you tip your vehicle over on some of the rougher terrain then you have the option of starting all the way back where you entered the game or driving out another vehicle such as a crane to try and set your vehicle back on the road again. Both of which can take a fair amount of time to get you back on your way again, so it pays to be very careful when driving vehicles on rougher terrain, thankfully the scout vehicle does come equipped with tools to send out a ping to map terrain and water depth to help you decide the optimum path for driving. If you don’t have patience and enjoy carefully traversing the map though then you might not find this component of the game enjoyable at all.

Once you have a base set up Kelly will chime in and set you up with a new set of objectives such as using dump trucks filled with sand to fix up roads that have been damaged by floods, moving shipping containers blocking roadways at a port or building bridges across bodies of water. Gathering resources such as wood and concrete is also important as is setting up a supply line between your base and the various constructions areas on the map. Supply convoys are where one of the games more frustrating mechanics rears its ugly head, after you have cleared a path for your convoy from one base to another you need to plot out points where you would like your convoy to traverse the landscape, which by itself is an interesting mechanic. Problems arise though when you plot out a route and set your convoy off on their journey, if they get stuck you can replot your route but after you do this your convoy then starts again from where they are based at, since plotting out a successful route can take many attempts, it can become very tedious to continuously have to start the journey over and over again.

Graphically RoadCraft looks great, from the landscape and environmental effects through to the terrain deformation caused by your vehicle driving through the mud, water and sand. All the vehicles and machinery also look and sound fantastic and grunt and splutter and satisfyingly spill smoke as they struggle to navigate the landscape. The eight maps in the game are also pleasingly diverse and well designed and encourage exploration at every turn.

There is a lot to do in RoadCraft but unfortunately it does start to feel repetitive very early on in the game. At times it feels like RoadCraft doesn’t know whether wants to be an offroad driving simulator or a construction simulator that’s consists of mini games involving moving stuff around with cranes and other machinery; for me the two different types of gameplay did not feel cohesive or gel together. The game does become significantly more engrossing when playing co-op though and I had a lot more fun for the couple of hours I was able to play with a friend as the act of coordinating and completing tasks the most efficient way possible felt much more satisfying than simply doing these alone. As a big fan of SnowRunner and Expeditions I can’t help but feel slightly disappointed by what is on offer here especially when it comes to playing the game solo. If you have a bunch of friends to jump in and play with then you will definitely have a much more enjoyable time, but for the most part, due to repetition, the game started to feel more like a chore than something I was doing for fun after the first couple of hours.

The Score

6.5

Review code provided by Focus Entertainment

The Pros

Varied and well-designed landscapes

Great environmental effects, mud and water splash everywhere as you traverse the landscape

Large number of vehicles to discover and drive

The Cons

Some frustrating gameplay elements that reset progress

At times it feels like you are driving from one mini game to another

Requires playing co-op to get the most out of the game

UI is unnecessarily difficult to navigate