Flipping trucks into ditches has never been this fun
Playing Expeditions: Mudrunner is like running downstairs to play with my train sets on a Saturday morning. Except in this case, those train sets actually have something to do besides go around in circles.
The latest game in the ‘Runner series from Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment is easy to have a lot of fun with. From its great initial tutorial to the eventual open-ish world, Expeditions comes off as much more focused than its predecessors. It gives us a huge variety of things to do, with quests that vary from simple to complex across a ton of different environments. And the environments here aren’t aggressively trying to screw us over; rather, they’re letting us play in their mess.
The smartest thing the franchise has done was to scale the map system back a bit from prior entries, allowing it more to be based on mission selection instead of a vast, uncontrolled open world. Sure, we can roam freely if we want to, but the quests are what make the game enjoyable and lead to some great comedy, like getting ourselves to a point where we’ve flipped our truck but since we’ve used up our jack springs there’s no way to flip it back over. And for the most part the game does NOT care. It’s great. If we play smartly, though, we won’t get to a fail state of the game saying “I’m sorry, you can’t go any further.”
The biggest pet peeve of the series is still here, as the game incorporates the typical Mudrunner UI but somehow makes it more complicated. I just want to get to my selections, but too many menu layers and button pushes to get to what I want to do. At least that aspect is something that is fairly easy enough to get used to, it’s just more annoying than anything else.
Expeditions: A Mudrunner Game is an easy recommendation. I’ve had the best time listening to podcasts and taking on missions, and just zoning out while I go through the familiar motions. Can I flip my truck and get stuck even late in the game? Yeah. But that’s something that I actively look forward to now.
This review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It originally appeared on The SideQuest Live for March 6, 2024. Images and video courtesy Focus Entertainment and Saber Interactive.
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