RoadCraft Review

In a nutshell, Roadcraft is an evolved version of developer Saber Interactive’s hit exploration sims Mudrunner, released back in 2017, and its successor Snowrunner, which released in 2021. Over the years, Saber Interactive has perfected the art of making the struggle of traversing harsh open environments feel challenging, rewarding, engaging, and fun rather than tedious and too difficult. It’s a very delicate line, but Saber has figured out the best way to walk it.

I’ve spent about 60 hours with RoadCraft now, and I keep coming back to the same thought: this game knows exactly what it wants to be. You’re running a disaster recovery company, which at times is exactly as cool as it sounds, and at others, exactly as frustrating as it sounds. You’ll spend your days clearing debris after hurricanes, rebuilding roads that got washed out, and trying not to flip your bulldozer while moving a shopping cart out of the way. Yes, that’s a real thing that happens; I’m living proof.

Time to put those vehicles to use

RoadCraft Review

8.5Great

PlatformsPC, PS5, Xbox X|S

Release DateMay 27, 2025

DeveloperSaber Interactive

PublishFocus Entertainment

The premise is simple enough. Natural disasters have wrecked various locations, and you show up with a fleet of heavy machinery to fix everything. You’ll use dump trucks to haul sand, bulldozers to level terrain, cranes to move equipment, and steamrollers to smooth out roads. RoadCraft gives you objectives like “transport supplies to the factory” or “clear this section of road,” but how you accomplish them is mostly up to you.

And that’s where RoadCraft gets interesting. Unlike other sims where you just point and click to build things, you’ll go through the actual stages of construction. Want to build a road? You need to dump sand first, level it with a bulldozer, lay asphalt with a paver, then compact it with a steamroller. Miss a step or do it wrong, and your road will be a bumpy mess that trucks can’t use efficiently, which is very, very important.

The learning curve is real. My first attempt at laying cable involved digging trenches across an existing road, which meant I had to rebuild the entire road afterward. The game doesn’t hold your hand other than a brief tutorial on each mechanic. Instead, it just says “lay cable from here to there” and expects you to figure out the logistics, which is refreshing.

Taking matters into your own hands

Once you get the hang of it, RoadCraft becomes surprisingly zen. There’s something deeply satisfying about watching your AI trucks use a road you built from scratch to traverse a disaster-ravaged area. The physics feel weighty and realistic. Even when you’re operating a 50-ton crane, it actually feels like you’re moving that much metal around.

Taking it a step further, the variety in vehicles is impressive. You’ve got over 40 different machines, from simple scout vehicles to massive cranes that require you to deploy stabilizing anchors before lifting anything heavy. Each one handles differently and has its own learning curve. The crane controls are completely different from the bulldozer, which is nothing like driving the dump truck. Lots of different controls to learn, but it feels rewarding when you really get down the seamless transition between them all.

Of course, co-op is great as it is with Snowrunner. Playing with friends turns the whole experience into a construction ballet. One person can handle the crane work while another manages the bulldozer, and suddenly, tasks that felt overchallenging solo become much more manageable. The game supports up to four players, and having that many people coordinating different aspects of a job creates some genuinely fun moments.

The environments through each of the maps look great, too. The eight maps each have their own character, from muddy forests to dusty desert areas. Then, when weather rolls in, it actually changes how the terrain behaves. Rain makes everything muddier and harder to navigate, which adds a nice tactical element to planning your routes.

Strangely cathartic

Like Snowrunner before it, RoadCraft is definitely not for everyone. And by that metric, if you go in expecting SnowRunner with construction elements, you’ll be disappointed. This game removed the more drive-sim-specific mechanics like fuel management and vehicle damage, making it feel more arcade-like than previous Saber titles. I’m sure die-hard Snowrunner fans hate this change, but I personally think it lets you focus on the construction puzzles without getting bogged down in survival mechanics, while also getting a consistent natural progression flow.

Honestly, that’s one of my biggest issues with Snowrunner. I always had fun playing it, but it felt like there was no real progression, other than just unlocking the next objective. In RoadCraft, I feel like with each route I build and then optimize, I’m making my overall progression forward even better.

This is also a game for people who find heavy machinery genuinely interesting. If you’ve ever watched construction work and wondered how they coordinate all those different vehicles, RoadCraft scratches that itch perfectly. It’s also great if you enjoy slow, methodical gameplay where patience pays off.

Stay out of the mud

RoadCraft does have some rough edges that are certainly worth mentioning. At times, for certain vehicles, the controls are wonky, especially compared to SnowRunner. Each vehicle type has its own control scheme, and switching between a crane and a bulldozer means relearning which button does what, so prepare to be looking at the on-screen prompts constantly until you can really get them all down.

I’ve also encountered a few random, more tedious bugs. I’ve had vehicles randomly launch into the sky after hitting a small bush. Textures sometimes don’t load properly, leaving everything looking blurry for several seconds. Save files don’t always preserve terrain changes, so you might log back in to find debris has respawned on roads you already cleared, suddenly clogging up your AI routes.

Speaking of which, the AI trucks that use your roads can be infuriating. They’ll get stuck on the smallest obstacles and sometimes refuse to use perfectly good routes you’ve built. Managing them can feel more like babysitting than strategic planning, and the actual payoff in rewards only occurs a few times, and then making the road optimized is more of just a chore than a rewarding loop, which does not feel great.

The game requires an SSD and can be demanding on hardware. I’ve had no problem on high settings, and it looks quite good, but I have a pretty beefy PC, and I know others have not fared as well. It’s understandable, though, as the physics engine is impressive. Watching terrain deform as you drive over it never gets old, even after five games in this series

Crafter of Roads

RoadCraft feels like the developers took everything they learned from MudRunner and SnowRunner and applied it to a completely different problem: construction puzzles and progression. Instead of just surviving harsh terrain, you’re actively reshaping it. That shift in focus makes for a unique experience that stands apart from other vehicle sims, and for me personally makes the entire gameplay loop more fun.

The game does have some technical issues that need addressing. Save game problems and physics glitches can really break the immersion. But when everything works properly, RoadCraft delivers something you can’t get anywhere else.

For most people, RoadCraft is worth trying. Just go in knowing that this is a slow, methodical experience that demands patience. You’re not racing through action sequences; you’re rebuilding infrastructure one truckload of sand at a time.

As for me? I keep loading it up. There’s something oddly compelling about turning these disaster zones back into functional areas piece by piece, even if it takes forever and occasionally makes me rage when a random stick halts my AI routes. RoadCraft isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely unique and a lot of fun.