RoadCraft Review

Saber Interactive’s driving sim series, after Mudrunner’s 2017 release, has been a big success. Snowrunner has gained a considerable following and has been supported with five years of additional content, and last year’s Expeditions was an enjoyable slight twist on the formula, which I liked even if the Snowrunner community wasn’t as hot on it. But Roadcraft represents the first major switch-up for Saber, and it’s a fantastic one, focusing the simulation in a new era: construction.

There is a reason this game doesn’t have the “Mudrunner” subtitle, and that is because it isn’t really about driving at all. Saber has made a lot of pullbacks in that area. There is no vehicle damage (besides engine submersion in water), fuel consumption, gearbox, or manual vehicle controls, and customisation is limited to Scout vehicles only. But this tradeoff allows a lot of the gameplay depth to stay focused on building construction facilities, fixing weaknesses in roads with sand and asphalt, and recycling and reusing materials to build new infrastructure routes for the towns you are working in.

These towns have been hit by various natural disasters. Your goal is to help them recover or prepare for additional environmental threats, such as a flood. The two core maps are split into several map variants and iterations across the campaign, with more than 300 objectives and tasks to complete.

What you do in these iterations varies drastically. One moment, you could use a truck to carry concrete slabs to build a bridge. Next, you may build a road by laying sand, smoothing it out, covering it in asphalt, and rolling it flat. Then you might use a crane to remove containers blown across a road or prepare flood defenses by building a flood wall. The point is, there is a lot of variety here, much more than you will find in any of Saber’s other sim games, and the moments where you are driving aren’t focused on it.

That sheer variety of activities you do across the game’s maps means Roadcraft feels like a big construction sandbox you are learning as you go, becoming familiar with the crane controls, different types of vehicles, and how to make use of them to improve your infrastructure delivery routes and traversal. It can take a while to remember controls for all these vehicles, but they are constantly shown on the screen, which helps remove some friction.

The progression throughout the game, as you learn how everything works and what types of terrain they can travel across, manifests itself in a smooth learning curve that offers an exponential amount of depth as you move from task to task.

You figure out how you can use vehicles better, you can better prepare roads ahead of time to deliver materials, fixing any subsidence in them or muddy areas quicker and more effectively, and when playing in co-op you and your friends can work together to solve larger problems together at the same time by each taking on a role in fixing an issue collaboratively in a way that Saber’s previous games doesn’t allow. For example, when building a road, one person can lay the sand, another can smooth it out, the third can lay the asphalt, and the fourth can go over it with a roller vehicle. That takes a few minutes, compared to playing alone, where it can take a few dozen.

But it is still enjoyable to get through these challenges alone, especially as you can plot driving routes for AI vehicles to make several deliveries and objectives for you. One example is that you can get them to deliver concrete slabs to a plant, which you can then take to a bridge to build, rather than having to find those slabs yourself in the world and transport them. The difficulty is also still there. I spent an hour trying to fix one subsidence issue on a road along my delivery route, and the relief and elation once I finally fixed it were through the roof. There is also vehicle progression, although it is much more limited than Saber’s other games. You purchase upgraded vehicles and trucks with better performance, but this wasn’t an issue for me, as, once again, the driving and vehicles aren’t the focus. The construction is.

It would have also been nice to see more variety in environments than a forest and a sandy hillside, but ultimately, it wasn’t a huge sticking point during my time playing. The game ran flawlessly, and I had no bugs or issues.

In addition, the visual improvements here in Roadcraft are a massive step up from Expeditions, and the engine enhancements can be seen in almost every pixel. The texture quality, weather effects during these natural disasters, and the detail of mud, asphalt, and sand moving as you place them on the ground and/or drive over them are impressive. The only downside was that the soundtrack is rather uninspired and sits in the background.