Combat in Drivers of the Apocalypse, which debuted today at the PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted, looks absolutely ludicrous, with the eponymous mercenaries flying from car to car as they plow through sand dunes and blow the rest of their convoy to smithereens. While vehicular combat has received a surprising amount of affection from developers in recent years, with Fumes and Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks delivering particularly explosive high-speed thrills, I declare a dire need for yet more games that double dip on racing and fragging.
Fans of those games might notice the biggest departure with Drivers of the Apocalypse is that you play as a person first and a vehicle second, with the protagonist Artemis able to fly around in a wingsuit and swap cars mid-fight to steal the upper hand (or because the only other option is about to blow up).
These vehicles are decidedly makeshift, crudely affixed with cannons and machine guns, and they are as disposable as they look. Players will want to assess the battlefield as they make their next move, as developer Jussi-Petteri Kemppainen noted in a press release: “It's not just about speed; it’s about survival, strategy, and making every vehicle count." The same release teases bombastic boss encounters where players will descend on whole fields of cars with a need for speed.
It’s all about as Mad Max as you might expect, with massive sandstorms shrouding the horizon as dune buggies, vans, and pickup trucks rollick across the desert. If there’s a part of me that looks down my nose at tropes, it’s been blasted to bits from a nearby truck by the part of me that loves Interstate 76. While Drivers seems to lean more arcadey than that game, its explorable wastelands and hectic firefights have shot it up near the top of my most wanted games list regardless.
