Wreckfest 2, the long-awaited sequel to Bugbear’s beloved folk-racing/demolition-derby title, releases in early access today for PC gamers on Steam. The price is set at $24 for launch day and the first few weeks, though that will eventually rise to $30. This is a day my friends and I have been looking forward to for some time, but now that we’re seeing how the game will take shape for day-one buyers, I’m having second thoughts on taking the plunge myself, and wondering why Bugbear and publisher THQ Nordic are going this route. It’s fair to argue that this isn’t the finest first impression they could’ve delivered.
Before we go any further, I need to say that I have not played Wreckfest 2 yet, though others in the media have. Traxion posted its early impressions Wednesday; that video is a good view of the full content of the game as it will land on Steam today which, unfortunately, really isn’t much. You’ve got four cars and four tracks (though one’s really more of a test course environment), as well as the ability to compete in quick races and demolition deathmatches alone or in multiplayer lobbies. That’s it.
The release does at least appear to give early adopters a fair assessment of the game’s improved graphics presentation and physics but, let’s be honest—in recorded footage, it could definitely be confused for the original game, except with more off-track junk. And it’s not like the original Wreckfest is a poor handling or bad-looking product, especially considering the massive lighting and rendering update it received in 2021 that transformed the look and feel for players on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series consoles.
So, we’re not off to a great start, then. Most of those four cars appear to be carryovers from the previous game, except the notable new inclusion of a Chevy Cavalier-like front-wheel-drive coupe. Savolax Sandpit returns as well, which fans of Wreckfest will no doubt already be familiar with. Traxion notes that there were a number of bugs in the build they played, like game crashes, missing loading-screen placeholders, and an unresponsive UI, which isn’t terribly surprising for an early-access release.
I have been seriously looking forward to Wreckfest 2, and I said as much when the game was announced. The original is one of my most-played games on Steam and, frankly, getting through those early days of the pandemic would’ve been considerably harder if my friends and I weren’t bashing virtual cars into each other all the time. If you don’t already own it, I can’t recommend it enough; the gameplay’s sublime, there’s loads of content, the soundtrack is truly one-of-a-kind, and I doubt any driving game will make you laugh harder. Of course, few others let you load up the grid with lawnmowers and school buses at the same time.
Unfortunately, that leaves Wreckfest 2 and THQ Nordic’s call to begin in especially early early-access form a bit puzzling. When you’re buying a game in early access, you’re agreeing to concede a polished and full experience for a considerable price reduction, with the understanding that, in time, the game will improve. Occasionally, that process starts with the game in a great place already and finishes with it becoming excellent, as we have seen with Genki’s Tokyo Xtreme Racer reboot. For $30, TXR already offers many hours of content right off the bat, a large highway system to explore populated with numerous rivals, and a solid assortment of vehicles and performance and cosmetic upgrade options. It represents maybe 60% of what will eventually be the full experience, and since its January launch, Genki has already lavished it with bug fixes and quality-of-life updates.
TXR is the gold standard of how early access releases should be handled, and nobody I know who purchased the game feels like they haven’t gotten at least their money’s worth, maybe more.
As many PC gamers know all too well, most of the time, the situation described above is not typically how early access goes; the build you get on launch day is what 20 years ago might’ve been shipped on a magazine demo disc, except glitchier. And the original Wreckfest certainly wasn’t immune to this. It took ages for Bugbear to get that game into a state that felt complete following its initial release in 2014. The difference was that Bugbear was an independent developer at that time, crowd-funding a spiritual successor to its cult-classic FlatOut games from years earlier. Today, it’s a subsidiary of THQ Nordic, itself under the massive Embracer Group umbrella.
All that is to say, Wreckfest 2 is a game with considerable backing that should have the luxury of being sold when it’s ready, or close to it. But, business context aside, what’s the incentive for anyone to drop $30 on this game as it stands on launch day? If the content’s so limited, then the first early access taste has got to be about more than that—it must deliver a vision of what Bugbear is planning for the full release and convince players that what’s coming is beyond the scope of what’s already present in the original Wreckfest. Again, from what I can see of the new game, the visuals are a little slicker and the sound might be a little better; Traxion noted that the appearance of the track surface and the way cars interact with it stands out as a definite improvement over the first one.
Maybe that’s enough to deserve an early, $30 vote of confidence for you. And, look—I do expect Bugbear to build this up into a fantastic experience in years’ time, much as it did with the original Wreckfest. We should start seeing the fruits of that continuing labor soon, as the first major content addition with a few new cars and tracks is reportedly two months out. Personally, though, what’s here just doesn’t rise to the level yet.
That’s a minor disappointment, but it stings sharper because imagining how Wreckfest 2 might look in another year—with a respectable roster of cars and tracks, something resembling a campaign, and hopefully some new game modes built to introduce experiences that just weren’t possible in Wreckfest 1—would’ve sold me from the jump. Instead (and I very much hesitate to throw these words around these days), this feels a little cash grabby and, as a result, I’m going to be asking myself every few months, “Is Wreckfest 2 worth it yet?” Not exactly an ideal first impression for the sequel to one of your favorite games in recent memory.