I’ve spent thousands on my racing game rig but MudRunner wasn’t built for it

SNOWRUNNER’S massive open world gave us Death Stranding vibes, and if you’ve played the latter you’ll know that’s a compliment.

It put the MudRunner name on the map with millions of players and regular content updates to this day.

Thanks to this, Expeditions: A MudRunner Game was highly anticipated, with fans assuming that it would be bigger and better than the last game.

Instead, Saber has gone back to MudRunner’s roots with a more level-based approach, albeit with new twists and systems from the previous game.

This goes against what made SnowRunner so popular. There was a sense of challenge in exploring a world that is fighting against you.

With these smaller maps, the waypoint system is a downgrade from SnowRunner’s.

The open world forces you to plot your route across the map before you start, whereas here, you can eyeball where you need to go.

There are side assignments that encourage you to explore the map beyond the main expedition, which offer more vertical and difficult driving challenges.

Main expeditions can be very long, with checkpoints triggering randomly and no way to manually save.

This means you will have to be prepared to lose progress if you leave the game mid-expedition.

After you finish an expedition you can stay as long as you want to finish assignments, but it can get a bit tedious in these enclosed sandboxes.

But it does add significant content to the game, hundreds of hours worth, and this is where the more challenging elements can be found.

Every expedition ends with a generic request to explore the environment, and this can be frustrating with how precise the trigger points are.

Operators do change up gameplay in an interesting way, where you have to manage your budget as well as your vehicle.

The cars are the stars this time around, rather than the trucks, as lighter vehicles often make traversal easier.

Each level will also point out which vehicle is the best fit for the course, but you can go against this advice.

Expeditions: A MudRunner Game exceeded our expectations from the preview, but we can’t help but miss SnowRunner’s open world.

It feels like a step back for the series, even though the game that is there is still a fun experience.

If you want to read more gaming reviews, check out our Balatro review.

Written by Georgina Young on behalf of .