RoadCraft – Review

If you want to play a road and bridge simulator, this is it!

Among gaming enthusiasts, there are all sorts of diverse niches. We have people who only play Fortnite, people who only play FIFA, people who only play shooters, people who are only passionate about car simulators, etc. Among all these niches, there are a few very specific and very technical sub-categories. I play a bit of everything for everyone and can appreciate some of these very technical things, even if not always to their true value. For example, I like learning to fly in Microsoft Flight Simulator, but I never give it enough attention to actually believe I could do it in real life. Whereas when a pilot plays, you can see they know what all the buttons and controls do; it's clearly something else.

Among these niches is also mud-bogging with all sorts of beasts that emit a lot of diesel smoke from their exhausts, aka proper off-roading. There aren't many games in that category, but for the 3 enthusiasts who find it fun, SpinTires remains a benchmark title even today, along with its sequels, MudRunner and SnowRunner. The recipe was simple: you had a few maps to explore, a few 4x4 or 6x6 or even 8x8 monstrosities, a winch, and piles of mud and rough, inaccessible terrain, plus a few objectives placed in hard-to-reach areas, and you had a few hours of guaranteed fun. With probably the most realistic mud ever simulated in video games, they really were fun; I lost a good few hours in each title. Especially in SnowRunner, which came out around the same time as the pandemic, when we were all stuck at home, it was a joy to explore nature even virtually.

So when a friendly hand reached out to me with a RoadCraft review key, I decided to give it a chance and see what it was all about, knowing the pedigree it comes with.

RoadCraft is the new title from Saber Interactive, but it also caters to another niche – construction simulator enthusiasts. The recipe might seem similar, initially. You again have open-world maps, each 4km², you have the most realistic mud in video games, along with the associated physics, you have the equivalent of a Defender with which you have to explore and discover each map, and you have to drive yourself to every important location. From here, however, the game becomes more complex and complicated, because now the objective is not just exploration and resource delivery – now you will be the one who also performs repairs and builds roads.

Basically, you are the boss and the executor of a Disaster Recovery company. This means that at the beginning of each chapter you will arrive in areas that have been hit by all sorts of calamities and natural disasters, in diverse biomes starting with Africa and continuing with Eastern Europe and a bit of Scandinavia, and you will help with the return to normal. The game gradually gives you access to most of the tools you will use, and it also provides tutorials, fortunately. You will use jeeps, trucks, gravel pits, bulldozers, cranes of all kinds, asphalt pavers and compactors, mobile offices, special trucks for pulling cables, and all sorts of other vehicles and resources.

You will lay cables underground, repair industrial pipes, clear areas and recycle materials, pour roads, and to do all this, you will have to explore, gather the necessary resources, and physically transport equipment, vehicles, and materials from your base to the work site. In addition to all this, you will clear supply routes and help entire communities regain access to provisions, electricity, food, or drinking water, or simply access to a road.

If it sounds complicated… well… it kind of is. But, if you're passionate about engineering, construction, or simply enjoy solving puzzles from time to time, you can have fun with RoadCraft. If you also have a few friends who are passionate about the same things, I can see a geeky simulation of arriving in an area and collaborating to build roads and repair infrastructure. One fills with sand, another levels the sand, after which the cement is poured and compacted; everyone can divide the roles.

It's also worth mentioning that activities can be automated, and you can hand over control to the AI from the menus when it comes to building a road or other types of activities. The vehicles will still have to pass in the correct order, but you don't have to execute every single step yourself, only if you want to.

The exploration part is somewhat less satisfying than in SnowRunner/MudRunner, and it's clear that RoadCraft is a different kind of game, so if that's what you're looking for, you can safely go back to SnowRunner. You still have control, you can lock differentials, switch between transfer cases, and choose when and if you want all-wheel drive in most vehicles. Traversing the terrain is still difficult, and you have to choose your route carefully. You can get stuck and use the winch to get unstuck. Vehicle customisation is no longer present, however; you can only choose the colour, and apart from exploring essential points, you won't really have time to explore for more interesting or hidden things, nor is there any reason to; everything is strictly functional. We can say it adds to realism, of course, just as it's true that it also adds to boredom. You get pretty fed up doing the same road for the fifth time just to bring all the equipment you need from the base or wherever it was.

The construction part and the handling of vehicles and machinery are quite meticulously done, but still accessible enough that you can manage quite easily once you understand how each piece of equipment works. The game also does a pretty good job of explaining what steps are necessary for each type of machinery and operation. To pour a road, you need 4 pieces of machinery, and each must pass in a natural and logical order. All in all, if you want to see what finished roads look like, RoadCraft can be quite therapeutic, especially in Romania. The interface is not the most intuitive; sometimes you can get lost in the menus, and the UX is not great either. Also, the control combinations are not always the most felicitous, but if you've played MudRunner/SnowRunner, you'll have a bit of practice.

Also, you need to be careful when making supply routes for AI-controlled vehicles, as the AI is quite idiotic and doesn't really know how to avoid another AI vehicle coming from the opposite direction. It's a bit of a pain with them. Otherwise, the menus and interface are quite janky. The game also suffers from pretty major optimisation issues, quite specific to Unreal Engine 5. I haven't encountered any crashes so far, but many people complain about performance issues. Sometimes it looks okay, sometimes it looks like a game from 2012 whose textures haven't loaded, so it depends on what RTX you have under the hood.

On the audio side, the game is okay, with some elevator music in the background and the rest being typical construction noises – diesel, lots of thuds, and lots and lots of dust; it's serviceable, but it didn't blow me away.

As for recommending it… only if you're passionate about construction or engineering, honestly. I can't recommend it to MudRunner or SnowRunner fans because it went in a completely different direction with the recipe, nor to casual players because they'll throw jars at me in the street.

For what it aims to be, once it resolves some of its technical issues, RoadCraft does its job, and there's not much else similar on the market. How well this recipe works as a game and how much fun you can have with something like this depends solely on how passionate you are about machinery, trucks, excavators, and construction. If you want to play a road and bridge simulator, this is it.

Finally, thanks to the publisher and Leo for the review key!

▶ Play video (YouTube)Open on YouTube

Played on: PC
Release date: 20 May 2025
Developer: Saber Interactive
Publisher: Focus Entertainment