Brilliant new Roadcraft update makes the realistic simulation game a lot better

Huge floods, collapsed bridges, hundreds of houses and buildings destroyed - given the scale of the chaos in Roadcraft, and the enormity of your tasks, it's surprising how much the tiniest details can completely ruin your day. Yes, we need to pump out the quarry, lay tens of miles of electric cable, and redirect the town's water supply, but there's a bigger problem: I can't securely attach my asphalt paver to the back of my cargo truck. It's all about the minutiae in Roadcraft. Already one of the greatest and most realistic driving and simulation games on Steam, Saber's superlative Snowrunner spinoff is now several times better thanks to a long-awaited, transformative update, which addresses dozens of these seemingly minor little nuisances to make the whole experience more cohesive.

In my own Roadcraft review, I explain how Saber has created one of the best simulation games and the best survival games, built in the arduous spirit of The Forest, Project Zomboid, and The Long Dark. Since Roadcraft first hit Steam in May, however, a few small inconveniences have threatened to spoil the game entirely. Thankfully, the new Roadcraft 2.0 update makes dozens of essential changes.

First up, the rain has been significantly cut back - there is now, in Saber's words, a "decreased occurrence of rainfall in all locations". It's not that rain is a bad thing per se. On the contrary, it adds to the challenge and believability of Roadcraft's slow-crawl driving simulation. But in the unpatched, vanilla game it rains far, far too much. Thankfully, that should no longer be the case.

Navigation has also been improved by the implementation of quick player markers, allowing you to quickly paint a route on your map, and give yourself more to follow along than just the single objective waypoint. All the asphalt-roller functionality of the entire roster of asphalt rollers can now be manually activated and deactivated, making it a lot easier to drive these vehicles from location to location, without their entire weight grinding along the path.

You can also, finally, secure mounted vehicles on transporters; just like cargo, if you put your paver, roller, or other slow-moving utility vehicle on the back of a flatbed or rig, you can now tie it down, so it won't slide off if you hit a sharp corner. Getting a little more specific, the mighty Kronenwerk L-34 Cargo variant can now flatten sand with its front-mounted blade, potentially making it one of the most useful vehicles in the game - with the carry capacity and the sand flattener combined, you now only need one truck, not two, to lay the first stages of a road.

Of course, the Kronenwerk - like all other Roadcraft vehicles - pales in comparison to the goliath Aramatsu Bowhead, which now has separate inputs for rotating the platform and lifting and dropping the cargo bed. There are also three new recovery vehicles available to buy, each equipped with a heavy-duty winch (I still think the default variety is too puny), and an extra scout transporter called the Tuz 119.

While Saber outlines dozens of other small, technical changes, there's one more significant addition courtesy of Roadcraft 2.0. When the game first arrived, a lot of players were disappointed with its lack of realism compared to Snowrunner. While Saber is already working on an upcoming 'hard mode' that will make the driving mechanics more complex, Roadcraft 2.0 lets you manually turn your engine off and on by holding down the handbrake button, making it that little bit more similar to the fastidious systems of Snowrunner.

If you're a big Roadcraft fan, check out some of the other best building games. You can also improve your visuals with our guide to the best graphics card options available right now.

You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We've also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.