Wreckfest review

Intro

Right of the bat: I didn’t expect Wreckfest to be this good. Not many games strike the correct balance between simulation and arcade, but Wreckfest does.

Wreckfest is an offroad racing and destruction derby game. There are racing events and events in which you have to demolish other cars by driving into them. In contrast to other racing games where you have to avoid collisions with other cars, Wreckfest rewards you for these collisions.

Gameplay

Career

The offline career mode is divided into several classes from beginner to pro. In each class, you have to gather a certain amount of points before the next class is unlocked. Points are gathered by completing events. Luckily, you don’t need to complete all the events in a class to unlock the next.

These events are mainly racing events with several destruction derby events and one or two fun events like racing in a motorized sofa. The racing events consist of small tournaments, a series of multiple races where the bottom half of the grid gets eliminated and of course simple single races.

Completing an event rewards you career points for progressing in your class, experience points and sometimes a car. Experience points let you increase your level and each level increase comes with a reward like a car. Every event also provides some bonus goals like achieving a certain amount of damage points which grant you extra experience points.

Multiplayer

The online multiplayer lets you race against other people. You can choose to join races, destruction derbies, or a mix. After each event, all players can vote on 1 of 3 preselected other events. There’s also an option to set up your own private event if you only want to play with friends. I never felt the need to do this because it’s really easy to join a random event and invite your friend to it. There’s a small chance the lobby is full in which case you have to quit and join another lobby.

As in all online multiplayer games, there are players which are really good and thus are always leading every race, players who like to annoy other players and mediocre players like me who just like to race. However, thanks to the nature of Wreckfest where it is the purpose to race dirty, the difference in player types is not disturbing. A leading player can easily get crashed by a player he’s lapping and the players who like to annoy other players will soon get wrecked and thus can’t race any further.

Cars

Looks and damage

The cars in Wreckfest are no Need for Speed high tier racing cars but simple low budget cars built to take a beating. And this is fine because after the first two corners in a race, your car will be covered in dust and have a different shape.

The damage system in Wreckfest is amazing. Every part of a car can get dented, bent, or completely removed. The engine, suspension and gearbox can also get damaged which you’ll feel in the haptic feedback in the PS5 controller triggers.

Behavior

Each car behaves differently on the road. Heavy cars can take more damage but feel more sluggish when steering where light cars can take less damage but are easy on the corners.

Speaking of these corners: you really need to break when approaching them. Going in flat out is not an option. Once into the corner, you’re given some slack when drifting. This is what I like about Wreckfest. It’s realistic enough to respect the race lines and a player’s race craft but without being punishing when making an error. When you go off the track or have been spun around by other cars you can hit the triangle button to reset your car in the right direction on the track. In career mode, this works instantly and in multiplayer mode, this takes a few seconds.

Upgrades

There are about 40 cars available in Wreckfest (without the downloadable content) and each car can be upgraded to raise the stats. This includes the standard stuff like the max speed and acceleration but it’s also possible to apply armor upgrades to make your car stronger. As this makes the car heavier, it goes at the cost of the speed and cornering of the car. This upgrade system allows you to build a car specifically for racing and a car (or multiple of course) for the destruction derby events.

Tracks

Wreckfest has a surprisingly lot of different tracks: about 40. They vary from oval to street races and demolition arenas. Each track can also contain multiple ground surfaces like mud and tarmac. They affect how your car behaves on track: mud has low grip but allows for better drifting in the corners where tarmac gives you more grip but is more punishing in the corners. A combination of these makes some tracks quite challenging.

I’d like to highlight the tracks in which you cross other cars because these are the most exciting in my opinion.

There’s this oval track, for example, which is not completely oval. At one point on the straight, the road is split into two small roundabouts forcing you to drive all the way back around the track into the opposing traffic. It’s hard not to hit any other cars during this race and gradually during the race, more and more car wrecks will appear on the track adding an extra dodge element to the race.

Gameplay rating: 9

The balance between simulation and arcade is perfect. The car handling is amazing, the tracks are cool and the career mode is fun.

Graphics

I have played Wreckfest on the Playstation 5 and was very impressed with the visuals. While the cars are no Ferraris and Lamborghinis, they are very detailed and especially the damage model is unlike I’ve ever seen in other games. I don’t know if it’s very realistic because you can still drive at top speed when your front wheels are crooked, but that’s alright in this game.

The tracks are very detailed too. The sand and mud nicely spray all over the place when drifting and it gradually covers your car during the race. Cracks in tarmac surfaces are giving a very realistic look to the tracks and the lighting in some (most) tracks is wonderful.

Graphics rating: 9

I can’t help but being impressed by the quality of the graphics in Wreckfest, and none at the cost of performance (on the PlayStation 5).

Audio

Wreckfest contains some inciting rock songs varying from indie to heavy metal really bringing you in the mood of smashing some cars. After some time, however, it gets repetitive as you keep hearing the same songs over and over again.

The car and crashing sounds are very good in general. Slamming into another car sounds really satisfying but touching the wall when a drift fails gives a weird “thud”. Minor car sounds like shifting gears or smashing a mirror are played through the controller speaker which is a nice gimmick.

Car engine sounds are mixed as it depends on the chosen car. Some sound really good, but some sound a bit like a vacuum cleaner.

Audio rating: 7

The audio in general is not bad, but also not outstanding.

Memorable

What’s memorable about Wreckfest is the fun mix between racing and demolition derby. The race experience is fleshed out enough to make it a real race game, but the demolition part adds a fun factor that other racing games don’t have.

Memorable rating: 8

An 8 out of 10 because Wreckfest is here to stay.

Conclusion

Wreckfest is a no-nonsense racing game. No story or fancy licensed cars. You either play in offline career mode which simply contains a set of events per class or play online with or against other people.

This simplicity combined with the brilliant sim/arcade balanced racing makes Wreckfest an ideal game for some brainless racing in between some heavy RPG games.

Played on the PlayStation 5.