Expeditions: A MudRunner Game Review (Switch)

When we first got wind that Expeditions: A MudRunner Game was on its way to Nintendo Switch, we gotta admit, we were a little bit surprised. This new entry in Saber Interactive's superb off-road sim series takes the whole mud-running malarkey to a new level, with larger maps, loads more fine details, and improved physics over its well-regarded predecessors. How on earth was this big, modern, physics-heavy driving game going to run in handheld mode on a seven-year-old console?

Well, as it turns out, not without some fairly notable issues. However, we will say straight off the bat that if this is your only way to play, or you're just a big fan of the previous games, you'll likely be able to overlook most of the roadblocks. But let's quickly run through the overall deal with what's different between this new entry and the sublime Snowrunner first.

Expeditions: A Mudrunner Game takes the solid off-road sim core of what's made the series so appealing since Spintires in 2014 and gives it the expected nips, tucks, and tweaks. Everything here just feels just that little bit nicer to do. The big difference though, and what really makes the whole thing pop off, is that the focus, the driving force behind your many arduous journeys, has shifted from the mundanity of the rat race to the thrill of exploration and science!

Yes, it's got bigger areas to get very badly stuck in — not exactly open world, but you get three great big maps — and that's exciting in itself, but it's this mental shift from 'Let's deliver the boring metal tube to the yard' to 'We are scientists, let's push back the boundaries and explore' that really makes this game feel very moreish and involving indeed. And really, it was this element that was missing from the excellent but still rather cold previous games. Of course, nobody expects a driving game to make you cry (although that's a very good idea), it just gives the whole thing a warmer, more welcoming vibe.

In terms of being welcoming, in fact, it's definitely a great place to start with these games in general, as the first map, Colorado, gives you lots of time and training to get to grips with a driving system that does an incredible job of making what should be quite complex situations an enjoyable — heck even relaxing — set of puzzles to work out. These are much more pretty puzzles, too, there are some incredible vistas to enjoy in this expedition, some amazing texture work on car models, and various types of mud, water, rock, and tree. And as we blow through all of these amazing little details we come to the first, and biggest, bump in the road for Switch drivers. It's all a little bit too blurry, folks.

We aren't sure what resolution we are looking at here, and it can vary in how bad it drops, but at times it's certainly a little bit of a strain to see all the lovely details, to really take in the superbly crafted atmosphere of your Death Stranding-esque sojourns into the wilderness. The draw distance has, completely understandably, also been dropped, so you lose out on the full majesty of the vistas and so on. However, whilst none of this is ideal, it doesn't impede the actual gameplay to any great degree, which is crucial.

Also, while you're losing out pretty big time visually (whilst still having a rather nice-looking experience all things considered), the most important element to success has been ported over intact, and that's the sweet mechanics and physics that make these games such a moment-to-moment joy. You can still make out the various shifting terrains and obstacles that you'll need to conquer in order to succeed and, with this core carried over intact, we've got a version of a huge new game that gets the job done on Switch. Honestly, it's much better than we expected. All of the spinning of tyres in thick mud, grappling up steep inclines, creating anchor points, balancing fuel and repair supplies — all of that good stuff — remains easy to parse, despite the blur.

There are other issues. Of course there are! The game looks better in portable mode, where the blurriness isn't quite so bad, but it has more frame rate wobbles when played this way. Docked, on the other hand, magnifies the graphical/resolution downgrades whilst running just that little bit better. The same old same old. It also has some issues when you use one of two of your various gadgets, with the binoculars in particular proving troublesome as you zoom in and out. Again, it's nothing major, just a massive game struggling a bit on a very small console. Science and that, mate. Oh, and the initial loading into a map can take up to a minute, which is a bit much, but there's very little loading once you're in-game, so we're happy to let that slide.

Now, since reviewing this one on Xbox, where we personally had little issue, we have heard quite few reports of bugs and performance problems on the new generation of consoles, so it's an experience in need of TLC all over, apparently. With this in mind, it's hard to come down too hard on it for the dips into the mid-20s that we've experienced (mostly in handheld), but be aware that it's not completely smooth sailing - although it sticks to 30 much better than we had imagined.

It's a shame that we haven't got another entry on Switch that can match the smooth frame rate performance of Snowrunner or Spintires on the platform, but nobody could realistically have expected that to be the case, right? Expeditions: A MudRunner Game does a great job of redirecting the focus of the series to something way more engaging and fulfilling to interact with. It's got the best physics in the franchise thus far and its three huge maps, Arizona, Colorado, and Carpathians are stuffed full of terrain that'll have you bogged up to the eyeballs for hours. There's a very special game here, one we reckon we'll be playing for a long time to come on one platform or the other, and it's one that's worth persisting with some niggling issues for.

There's a real sense of adventure and challenge in the way in which you doggedly push back the boundaries of each location, very slowly unlocking new routes, marking safe points, and paying your hard-earned coins to set up outposts where you can upgrade and shop along the way. It's the gradual taming and mastering of these great expanses, the delightful mini-puzzle nature of the slow-driving action, and the many little moments of quiet personal triumph this game will 100% grant you, that make it worth that persistence. It's a very rewarding experience for the patient gamer, and one we reckon is worth the downgrades if the Switch version is the one way you've got to play it, or if you just gotta have the option to go portable.

We should also point out right at the end that, as of now, the game has no online functionality on any platform, so as the (rather exciting) co-op features come online in a few months' time, as things get tightened and patched and bulked up with all of the planned Year One DLC, we have no doubt things will improve. And from an already fairly solid position...well, we'll take it.