MudRunner

No matter how slight, any forward movement is still progress. Dont forget that, not just for this game, but in your life as well

When i was in trade school i struggled with backing up with truck or semi truck combination (i was in logistics) so i when i got home i trained my self in this game to backup a trailer and it was successful and passed the test. :)

Drive on a road.
realise i can take a shortcut.
take the shortcut
the shortcut is takes longer than the road.
alr fine, im already here, lets continue
get stuck
drive other vehicle there to help
get it stuck too
get mad
reset
drive around
take a shortcut
get stuck
get other vehicle to help
get it stuck too
quit game
cry myself to sleep
play again tomorrow
repeat

Have you ever wanted to just get behind the wheel of something with enough torque to reverse the rotation of the earth? Something which burns through enough diesel to start a new ice age? A machine that epitomizes the destruction of nature’s only remaining habitat? That was, of course, a rhetorical question because I know the answer is yes and the game that does it is MudRunner.

You know how first-person shooters let you live the fantasy of just going nuts and shooting things you can’t normally shoot in real live? MudRunner does that too. But instead of shooting people, you destroy mother earth. The game presents you with a handful of levels or maps with each requiring you to select a truck, attach a trailer, go to a logging station and transport logs to a mill. Do it a few times, move to the next map and do it again. There are certain optional challenges on each map, like finding secret areas and smashing pumpkins, reaching all outposts and things of that nature. These give you something extra to do and are always welcome and rewarding with achievements or a beautiful vista of the Siberian wilderness.
At its core, the game is a careful driving game in which you drive soviet era off road trucks, transporting logs from point A to B. The meat of the game is in the driving mechanics. They, depending on your difficulty settings, determine how engaging the driving will be. You can manage gears, differential lock, all wheel drive, fuel consumption, trailer attachments and winch yourself out of a jam. The trucks are slow and have a hefty feel to them. Turning the key puffs up a cloud of black smoke, signalling to the heavens that you are about to burn through some serious dinosaur liquid.

While I was initially reminded of Euro Truck Simulator, the game is only similar in its simulator nature but not much else. You complete transportation objectives in both but that’s where it ends. While I did miss it, MudRunner does not present any economy mechanics like those in ETS. Instead, we are given extra challenges to complete and I was fine by that. The game can be easily played with a controller or keyboard, solo or co-op and runs fine on a steam deck.

All in all, MudRunner scratches an ich for a more particular driving experience in which you need to take it slow and either think things through or bring an extra vehicle to winch you out of an inevitable mud jam. Although brief at 13 hours, I enjoyed my time with it.

A very calm, relaxing and sedate game.
Then you get stuck in deep mud 10 feet from the cargo delivery area, with no trees close enough to winch your truck free. So you have a full mental breakdown and everybody in the street can hear you swearing.
Best game ever.

Incredible. So serene, relaxing pure. My first mud driving game. Even though it is far smaller than snowrunner I do sincerely believe it to be superior. Better physics, no upgrades for trucks is actually making the game better. There is no focus on optimizing and upgrading. You are just...chilling somewhere...nowhere in deep Russia, carrying logs. So fun, great game.

This was the first off road game I played where you could get a vehicle completely stuck and impossible to recover, It's challenging and can be quite frustrating. On one trail I spent 2 weeks trying to get one truck out but I gave up, now it is out in the wilderness rotting away.