Wreckfest 2 Early Access gives a brief look at another smashingly good time

The original Wreckfest was a game that, for some reason, sailed past me like a detached tyre flying in slow motion in a spectacular crash in an action movie. I loved the idea, the crash-happy ethos behind it, but despite owning it on multiple platforms, I only ever dipped a toe in for one or two races. Thankfully time has given me another chance to experience this crash-happy racer with Wreckfest 2.

As it heads into Steam Early Access, Wreckfest 2 is a fairly limited package to start with. In a faint echo of the initial early access release of the first game, there’s four tracks – two race tracks, one oval and demolition derby arena, and a greybox test arena with big ramps and funky flippers – four cars, and support for both solo play and online multiplayer with up to 24 drivers. There’s no career, and just those core modes, but that’s more than enough to give a feel for what Wreckfest 2 offers…. which is more Wreckfest.

Dropping into a quick race is just plain old fun, once you get over that innate desire to actually win. With 24 cars crammed onto these circuits, bobbling and bouncing over bumps in the dirt tracks, the inherently loose suspension of the muscle cars imitations doing little to really help you in an off-road setting, contact is inevitable. Heck, it’s encouraged. Smash into the side, rear-end or T-bone another car and the game will pin a few points on your race suit as a reward.

You might think that’s a great way to get ahead – just use the other cars to help you brake! – but it’s a delicate balance. If another driver keeps their foot in as you nudge their rear corner, turning them off the racing line and forcing you to go with them. Not ideal. There’s plenty times in a race where a car will end up sideways, with an angry traffic jam of competitors all pushing them along, and the chaos is engineered with the way tracks loop back around and cross over themselves, with two-way traffic adding high speed peril. It’s easy to come off worse in contact, or just as disadvantages, that it makes it all the sweeter when you do manage to tap a rival just so and spin them out without losing momentum yourself.

Alternatively, you have the destruction derby mode, where the whole point is to crash into other cars, racking up points for high speed collisions and dealing damage to other cars with the aim of getting the final blow to empty their health bar. Every crash is a double-edged sword, though. Sure, you’ll dish out damage, but you’ll take it yourself, quickly wrecking your vehicle, slowing you down and making you vulnerable. Once you’re wiped out, you’ll spawn again with a fresh car and get to rampage some more until time runs out.

They’re the two bread and butter modes of Wreckfest, and they’re just as good here. Bugbear has built this within their new ROMU engine that enhances the demolition physics and dynamic simulation.

There’s a point of comparison from original to sequel with the inclusion of the Savolax Sandpit track. More than a decade on from its first creation, Bugbear has been able to increase the fidelity a bunch, reprofiling the trackside quarry cliffs, putting far more trees in the densely wooded sidings, giving it a much hazier tone on a cloudy day, and with much better looking dust that’s kicked up as you race. It’s a nice uplift alongside the new Scrapyard track, which raced through a dusty scrapyard that’s filled with heaps of cars.

And then there’s the destruction, which just ups the nuance of what’s wrought upon the cars in the game. There’s still a leaning toward deformation before parts come off, and car suspensions are necessarily incredibly tough, just so that the cars keep on working after one or two prangs, but it really doesn’t take too much before the engine has been compressed to just be an office fan, while doors and bonnets flap about in the wind.

At this point in time, fans of the original are probably best served by actually continuing to play the original, but if you know that Wreckfest 2 will be a part of your racing game future and want to get in at the earliest possible point to see it develop, then the Steam Early Access release might just be for you. It is distinctly limited right now, little more than a demo or technical test, but there’s plenty for fans to look forward to in the months ahead.