🏔️🚛 SnowRunner | Review | PS4 | "Let's Rescue Some Folks On A Mountain Pass!" 🏔️🚛 @PlaySnowRunner #IndieGames #GameDev

Whilst a very niche gaming market, SnowRunner is the follow up to Mudrunner and is a surprisingly in-depth and rewarding experience that comes across as a game with the utmost respect for the challenging industry that it portrays.

Definitely not a game everyone will click with but will resonate with those that do.

Beginning the game with a pretty simple truck, the initial tutorial missions do a pretty good job of explaining the quite unusual layout of buttons, aside from the usual gears, and accelerate/reverse etc. you have a handy winch that is able to hook up to trees and surrounding objects to help pull you out of the mud/snow/bodies of water that you will inevitably find yourself sunken into quite often. 

On top of this, there are other abilities such as headlights (the game has a full night and day cycle, it gets tough at night!), locking in four-wheel drive and myriad more unlockables making the game almost feel almost like a flight simulator at times, albeit without a keyboard overlay.

When you do eventually click with the complexity of the controls and in-game menus, the game really begins to fully reveal itself. The visuals are very atmospheric; I could almost feel the biting winds as I peered through the thick, morning fog and shivered as I ground my way up treacherous, icy slopes in thick snow, my engine straining with the effort. 

As you make your way around the untamed landscape making deliveries and completing the many side missions, the music that will accompany you really suits the tone of the game. Guitar-based, bluesy instrumental tracks are the order of the day and roll along nicely in the background as you head across the expansive maps.

Whilst the camera can be a little tinker – it never soft-locks and always needs subtle adjusting – I tended to spend most of my time in first-person and then headed into third-person during some trickier predicaments and at night time to have a fuller understanding of my surroundings (and choose the ‘easiest’ routes!).

There is a lot of content here, missions litter the map and the game takes you across two sections of America and into Siberia, where the titular snowy landscape takes no prisoners.

With over 40 trucks to unlock and fully customise and the ability to play online co-op combined with the dozens of missions on offer, Snowrunner is a deep game that can really suck you in. 

If you are a fan of the series, this is a no-brainer as it successfully builds and improves on previous entries. That said, if you aren’t familiar with this genre then I strongly advise that you try out a demo first or watch some gameplay footage as the deliberately slow pacing and highly technical focus won’t appeal to everyone, but if it does, I’ll see you on the road.

Right, I’m off to rescue some folks stuck on a mountain pass…if I can get to them.

❄️ RATING: ICE COOL ❄️

Ratings Explained

ICE COOL (Great Game Recommended)

MELTING (Recommended with reservations, one to consider if you are a fan of the genre)

MELTED (Not A Recommended Purchase)