I didn't think natural disaster remediation would be this relaxing. When I first booted up RoadCraft, a game about performing clean-up jobs with heavy vehicles, I was plunged into a reflective mood by the plangent, melancholy guitar licks that better evoke crackling campfires and copious whiskey than they do mud and exhaust fumes. The mood doesn't let up as I lurch through a post-hurricane wasteland in my Armiger Thunder IV scouting truck, on my way to retrieve a tree harvester.
RoadCraft is by the creators of Spintires, SnowRunner and MudRunner. Like those games, it's about navigating large vehicles through inhospitable landscapes, but the focus here has shifted to performing clean up duties in the wake of environmental cataclysms. It requires a lot of patience, or to put it in a more positive light, a receptiveness to the particular fantasy it's trying to simulate. In this way, it feels even more niche than SnowRunner, which saw the series receive some inexplicable—albeit well-deserved!—crossover success.
