As someone who has endured over 50 Indiana winters – more than 35 of them as a motorist – I know a few things about getting stuck on and off the road, and even though Spintires: MudRunner uses mud instead of snow, the principles and physics of getting stuck (and unstuck) are painfully accurate in this niche off-road trucking simulator. Casual gamers and those with a short fuse on their patience disposition should probably avoid this game at all costs, but for those who enjoy the thrill of “mudding” and the satisfaction of strategically conquering massive maps loaded with A to B driving challenges, disable that parking brake and hit the gas.
Spintires: MudRunner is the updated/remastered version of Spintires; apparently a massive indie hit that I had never heard of, but if you happen to own it then you can get Mudrunner for half price. This ultimate version features a complete graphical overhaul along with a new Sandbox Map added to the original five mission maps. There is a new Challenge mode offering specific objective-based missions set on nine new maps and 13 new vehicles are added bringing the all-terrain tally to 19 unlockable ATVs.
The game opens with a mandatory tutorial before you even get to the main menu, and then when you want to dive into what appears to be the single-player content the game strongly encourages you to try the Challenge mode first. I assumed the game had my best interests in mind, so I followed blindly, learning how to drive various trucks on impossibly rutted roads, often with tire-deep puddles or thick mud. The game earns its name as you will spend nearly all of your playtime spinning your tires.
The Challenge mode offers bite-size chunks of gameplay, usually involving picking up and delivering cargo with a few rule modifications thrown in. The first mission asks you to never drive in the oncoming lane and to drive from the cockpit camera once you have hooked up your trailer. This leads to one of my biggest issues with the game – the CAMERA.
You have two options; the first being behind the wheel, which is somewhat realistic but also adds tremendous difficulty until you learn the turning radius of your truck, with and without a trailer; especially when your challenge requires no damage during delivery. The other option is this free-floating chase camera that is entirely manual. You can pan around the truck and the camera will zoom in and out on its own, and even the height seems out of your control. Trying to line up the camera so you can back into a trailer hook-up or drop-off is way more difficulty than it needs to be. If you drive from this view expect to be tweaking the camera 100% of the time.
Spintires: MudRunner seems more intent on delivering a playground rather than a proper game. Even when there are structured missions they are set in this huge open world where you are left with only a map and a compass and a rather poor waypoint system that ignores the roads and terrain and only offers “as the crow flies” connectivity. I ultimately settled on making mental notes of left and right turns rather than trying to plot courses through these winding logging roads.
The game seems to revel in the details, forcing you to do small tasks like cranking the ignition, releasing the parking brake and physically hooking up trailers. This gives the game a nice serious aspect that will certainly appeal to real truckers and off-road enthusiasts, but Spintires: MudRunner can also become exceedingly frustrating with no-win mission states that can appear at any time. I spent more than an hour attempting that first Challenge mission (about 12 attempts) before I finally completed it. One time a light pole hit my trailer and it discounted and rolled over, but mostly I would get to the trailer drop-off and get impossibly stuck in the mud. I could use the winch to drag myself forward but trying to back into the ghostly image of where my trailer should be to end the mission would result in going fender-deep in thick mud and spinning my tires, leaving me no option other than restarting. By my tenth attempt I was doing all the rest of this mission in record time, getting to the drop-off point in two minutes without a scratch, but every time I reached the drop-off circle and managed to turn my truck around to back it in the ground would get carved with deep ruts. Winning this mission was more relief than satisfaction.
Moving on to the main game was nearly overwhelming with this huge map dotted with unlockable trucks, a few logging sites and several lumber mills that required multiple loads of logs. Spintires: MudRunner is certainly not for casual gamers. These missions can take hours and require the dedication that only true trucking sim enthusiasts possess. It’s those same purists that will find the included support for wheel/pedal combos add greatly to the immersion and perhaps even lessens your chances of getting stuck since you have a broader range to your gas pedal versus a gamepad trigger.
The visuals for Spintires: MudRunner are technically nice with support for 4K, although the game is generally unpleasant to look at solely based on the scenery. Most of the game is overcast, and even when the sun does manage to pop out during the night/day cycle the backwoods surrounding and torn up roads and trails aren’t meant to be appreciated for their beauty – only their realism and how they are going to screw you over when you try to navigate the terrain ahead. The truck models are fine on the exterior, but the cockpit view is pure function over form.
If you loved or even enjoyed the original Spintires (and apparently more than a million of you did) then Spintires: MudRunner is probably going to be something you want to check out; especially at half price. Personally, I put this game in the same category as Bus Simulator or Mother Truckers in that the game seems more like a job simulator than an enjoyable pastime. If that is your idea of fun then by all means, get those tires caked with mud. Personally, I found the game visually unpleasant and more frustrating than fun. I’ll save my tire spinning for trying to get to work in February.
