Expeditions – A MudRunner Game review: Getting down and dirty in a truck

It follows in the footsteps of 2020’s SnowRunner, which tasked you with carrying cargo across rugged terrain that would tax a mountain climber. If anything, the topography in Expeditions has become even more demanding while, as the name suggests, the tasks now focus heavily on scientific assignments such as scouting, collecting equipment or locating fossilised remains.

As Doc says to Marty in Back to the Future II: “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” You might glimpse a faint track here and there as you meander around the rocky gulches of Arizona or the steep, forested slopes of Central Europe’s Carpathian Mountains. By and large, though, you’re forging your own route – identifying which rivers can be forded, which incline could be conquered and which mudbath would swallow your wheels.

Scoping the mission in advance requires careful thought but the fiddly menus and map don’t make it easy. In some cases, hindsight comes into play when you realise you can’t progress without a certain tool. At minimum, you must consider which truck to drive – high clearance for rough terrain, or small body for tight spaces, for instance.

You might employ a winch to drag yourself up a ridiculous gradient, or an echo sounder to gauge the depth of water. You’ll definitely make liberal use of a drone to survey the area and identify the path of least resistance.

Then there’s the moment-to-moment decisions of which gear (high or low, four-wheel-drive or two), what tyre pressure (flat or pumped up, depending on the ground) and what speed, all of which affect consumption of your limited fuel supplies.

Once you begin to master these variables, Expeditions tempts you with side hustles off the beaten track – or rather further away from the least-dangerous approach. You’ll get to hire specialists to broaden your skills and can build bases to unlock new vehicles.

But these are merely icing on a muddy cake – if a muddy cake was in any way tasty, of course. The scientific tasks at your destination really aren’t that interesting. Instead, the heart of the game lies in the methodical, even calming pursuit of a distant waypoint. There’s a soothing peace here out in the beautiful wilderness, even amid the roar of the engine, the shrill whine of the gears and the soft cursing as you get bogged down in yet another puddle of ooze.