by Omar (@siegarettes)

• Spintires: Mudrunner
  
• Developer- Saber Interactive
  
• Publisher- Focus Home
  
• PC. PS4, Xbox One
  

Most driving games are about mastering speed. They’re about obsessing about the angles through a corner, or how much time is spent at the highest gear. Mudrunner, by comparison, is often about the incremental variations in speeds within first gear. The only opponents here are the slow drain of resources and the mud that threatens to trap every one of your vehicles.

It’s a good opponent as well. Mudrunner is ultimately simple–deliver logs, maybe with some variation in the size of the pile, uncover the map, and slowly upgrade vehicles–but the mud physics lend an unpredictability to it. Mud hasn’t been foregrounded this much since 2007’s SEGA Rally Revo, and even then it was limited to simple tire tracks used to gain traction. Mudrunner gives it the full soft body physics treatment. Mud deforms as you ride through it, varies in degrees of hardness, and even cakes up around your tires. Recognizing where one variation ends and another begins becomes key to navigating Mudrunner’s Russian forests.

At one point, after crossing a river, I found myself at the mouth of an open field, pointed straight towards my next objective. It seemed like a surefire shortcut, and I drove straight into it, only to find that what I assumed was solid ground quickly gave way into damp mud, sinking my tires. Unable to back up, I ended slowly rolling forward, following the path of a small tributary. I found myself dragging my truck forward alongside the edge of the water, using my winch to keep myself attached to trees alongside the shore to keep from sinking into the depths of the water. Instead of a shortcut I ended up deep in an unnavigable forest,  watching the time tick away and the sunlight fade.

It’s in these moments that you see Mudrunner’s character. Harrowing, slow moving, and ever so slightly frustrating. Progress isn’t easily won, and even basic objectives can take an hour to complete. My delivery took almost two hours, with several forced detours as I uncovered the map and tried to find a viable path. Short periods of momentum gave way into long struggles with the mud as I attempted to slowly position my tires to get just a bit more traction. The camera didn’t help, which, while functional, operates outside the expected standard for driving games and doesn’t always feel cooperative.

There’s a deep loneliness to Mudrunner. Maybe it’s that unique feeling of expanse and solitude that feels common in so many Eastern European settings. Or maybe it’s how empty these forests feel. There’s none of the wildlife you’d expect, not even the small insects you’d expect to see by the river. The only sign of humanity are the rundown structures and outposts, and the occasional tonally jarring hard rock music that emanates from a few of them.

Still, there’s something quietly appealing about Mudrunner. Despite what those hard rock riffs want you to believe, there’s something meditative to these simple tasks. Your objectives and challenges aren’t so much there to create a compelling structure, but to give you just enough push to keep you looking for what’s in the next clearing, or what new path you can forge. It’s a good place to compose your thoughts–and swearing under your breath at yourself for driving over that bridge a little too fast and flipping over your best truck.