The first bit of DLC for mud-splattered infrastructure setup sim RoadCraft has rumbled out of the garage, bringing with it a couple of new maps, several extra vehicles, and some extra-tough options for those craving a hard time.
One of those fresh rides is a bridge layer, and you best believe it’ll end up wedged somewhere improbable with its wheels spinning helplessly once I get my hands on it. How can you mess up motoring towards a gap, and pressing the ‘commence bridgening’ button? It’ll be possible.
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Alongside that bridge layer in the Rebuild expansion’s offerings are two new Central European maps. The first, Contamination, is all about cleanup duty following a train crash dumping something not nice in a river thanks to some earthquaking. Then, there’s Wash-Out, which as its name suggests is a rather wet venture into a “reclaimed wasteland” to get an oil processor up and running again.
Developers Saber Interactive have split 100 new missions between the two, many of which will likely amount to pick thing up or unfuck this please, as is the runner series’ tradition. I’m a tad disappointed in the fact that aside from the all-new Vostok MU-97 ‘Ant’ bridge layer, the other four extra vehicles are just revamped versions of rides from the base game. There’s a bridge layer conversion for the Tayga dump truck, plus beefed up variants of the Thunder scout, Tuz 119 scout, and Mule T1 crane lorry.
That’s it for the stuff included in the expansion, but there’s also some free stuff on top of that, in the form of the Wayfarer ST7050 fuel truck and some advanced difficulty options. The latter includes “tougher fuel management, harsher convoy conditions, and stricter recovery rules, while adjusting costs and economy for a more demanding, realistic experience”.
While these are features some players have been asking for since release, back when I reviewed it I quite liked the fact that it omitted some of the nitty gritty management you’ve got to juggle in a lot of these games. It was something that helped set the RoadCraft experience apart from its muddy siblings SnowRunner and Expeditions, both of which are still getting fairly regular additions for those who want an excuse to hop back into them.
Meanwhile, our Brendy summed the RoadCrafting experience up thus in his review:
RoadCraft is a podcast game, in the same vein as Truck Simulator or Elite: Dangerous. There’s a big place for games like this in the world, sims that excel in delivering a specific kind of wonderful and comforting boredom. Slow tasks that act as a reassuring sedative in the manic whorl of life. But RoadCraft’s start-and-go flow makes it a bumpier ride for me. I was falling asleep, but I never quite drifted off into its promised dreamland.
I can definitely see what he means about the constructadriving sim having a bit of a mixed-up ethos when it comes to taking it slow all of the time, or being able to speed along if you wish. As the Brendo also wrote, whether you enjoy RoadCraft’ll likely depend on how much time you’re willing to give it, especially when things go wrong.
If you’ve dug this sort of thing before and can clear the calendar, this Rebuild expansion looks a decent reason to fire it up. If only to see whether the bridge layer’s as satisfying to use as the stump mulchers and tree harvesters.