Photo: Focus Entertainment
As a newbie to this genre, Expeditions: A MudRunner Game is the adventure driving game I didn't know I always needed in my life. Now that I've spent enough time with a preview build, all I have left to do is wait for the whole thing to release because I had an absolute blast with the off-roading simulator. And yes, it does come both in 3rd and 1st person perspectives.
After not even an entire minute of gameplay, the first impression I got from Expeditions: A MudRunner Game was that it was full of potential. To my shame, I never played a MudRunner game before, and everything was new to me. I didn't know what to expect, but it seems like this is the way to go for beginners of the genre. Sometimes, not knowing what you're getting is one of the best experiences you can have with a game.
With the cash earned, you get new vehicles, upgrades, and mission prep gear like anchor points, camera traps for animals, light beacons to mark safe areas, rangefinders, and other nifty little gimmicks that make your life as an extreme off-roading driver much easier. Most notable of all is the Jack-Screw that helps you return your car horizontally, in case, you know… you flipped it while heroically saying, "Yeah, I can make that, no worries. Just watch me!"
The first thing the game asked me to do before I could drive was to release the handbrake from the old truck I was in. It might not seem like much, but that was entirely new to me, and I raised an eyebrow, saying, "Hmm, this could be interesting."
Game Design & Gameplay
In Expeditions, the gist of it is really straightforward: you have a truck, various missions to complete, and if you make it out with your car in working order, you get paid at the end of the day. Like a wise man once said, "It ain't much, but it's honest work."With the cash earned, you get new vehicles, upgrades, and mission prep gear like anchor points, camera traps for animals, light beacons to mark safe areas, rangefinders, and other nifty little gimmicks that make your life as an extreme off-roading driver much easier. Most notable of all is the Jack-Screw that helps you return your car horizontally, in case, you know… you flipped it while heroically saying, "Yeah, I can make that, no worries. Just watch me!"
The first thing the game asked me to do before I could drive was to release the handbrake from the old truck I was in. It might not seem like much, but that was entirely new to me, and I raised an eyebrow, saying, "Hmm, this could be interesting."
Photo: Focus Entertainment
But setting aside my simple-minded surprise with the handbrake situation, the next best thing that hit me was the physics engine and how well the game simulates the interaction between your planet-polluting rig and the environment. If you're slipping, the graphics underneath the wheels will make sure you see what's happening in real time.
When I tried to go over obstacles like barrels or rocks, the physical interaction was exactly like I was expecting a great simulation to behave. When you knock something over or drive your truck over muddy stones, you feel every bump and slip. When you're knee-deep in water, you see the mud deforming in front of your wheels as you struggle with the locking differential in low gear to get out of the swamp like a champ.
Not to mention when you're in RWD mode, and you get stuck in a few inches of mud on land. This is amazing from an interaction point of view because it makes your brain behave like it would in real life and make decisions accordingly, without having to learn new laws of the universe just to play the game.
Photo: Focus Entertainment
Another gameplay system I found immersive is that you can deflate or inflate the tires at will, refill your gas tank, repair your engine, use a winch, etc. Another important marker is the AWD sign. Yes, you can switch from the initial RWD you start out with to the incredible-feeling AWD mode.
This is a preview build of the game, so I didn't have access to the whole thing. There may be more, but as maps or expeditions are concerned, there's Little Colorado with 6 missions, and Arizona and the Carpathians with a whopping 41 expeditions each. In total, 88 missions, assuming my 2nd grade math skills are correct.
So, this being a MudRunner game, how hard is it? Well, it's about as challenging as you make it. The simulation levels are so good that, from my experience with the game, you live or die by your driving skills.
I ended belly up in a river a time or two myself because I thought I had it. If you equip the right vehicle and have patience, then you're going to have a blast. If not, the Restart button is your friend. Although, a rewind button like in Motorfest or Forza Horizon would have been interesting.
This level of "soulslike" difficulty is perfect because you don't feel like the game design is unfair; and it's not. You assess the situation, accept what you did wrong, and the next time you venture forth into an unknown off-roading adventure, you'll be better at it. This is just the right amount of difficulty you would want from an experience like this.
Photo: Focus Entertainment
Graphics, Sound, and Performance
The game looks pretty, especially for a cross-gen title. Not "amazing," not "next-gen," but the graphics are more than enough to comfortably achieve suspension of disbelief. That's not to say Expeditions looks old or bad; quite the contrary.When you accelerate, the fumes coming from the exhaust system are accurate enough to make you feel like you're actually polluting the environment. The smoke is dark gray, thick, and foggy; all that's missing is the horrendous smell in your room, and you're there.
Also, when you factor in the advanced level of physics and simulation in the game, it becomes obvious that you can't have Cyberpunk 2077 or Alan Wake 2 levels of visual fidelity. No current hardware would even be capable of running that, except for a $5,000 state-of-the-art PC.
More important than graphics is the performance, which I'm glad to say is pretty good. I played it on a PC with an Nvidia RTX 4080 and i9-13900k. At native 4K resolution with Ultra Settings, Expeditions didn't dip below 100 fps, with 108 average fps (frames per second). Depending on what was happening, I even got 120+ fps, which is a sign the game is well-optimized.
In the sound department, Expeditions checks all the right boxes. The sound effects are on point and clear, and everything sounds like it should. The music is really atmospheric and adds to the immersion. The tracks are gentle and appropriate, never repetitive.
Keep in mind that this is also a preview build, so by the time it launches, it could run even better. I ran into a mud texture loading issue in one instance that didn't go away, but it's not something a minor update won't fix. Aside from this, I didn't encounter any technical problems like crashes, errors, or God forbid... blue screens.
Expeditions: A MudRunner Game, made by Saber Interactive and published by Focus Entertainment, comes out on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, and PC on March 5.
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