I missed this completely, but about a year ago, Snowrunner got an update that added Hard Mode. It takes Snowrunner’s awesome logistics gameplay and puts it – at last! – into a survival game.
The main change is that everything costs money now. Recovering your vehicles costs money, repairs cost money, fuel costs money, shipping your vehicles to new locations costs money, even cargo costs money. Also, you can no longer freely buy and sell vehicles, upgrades, and attachments, which means actual fleet management instead of a giant snowballing sum of money from which you occasional divert funds to “rent” whatever you want.
It plays like a whole other game now! The fear of mud and deep water and, eventually, snow is far more real when you’ve got a limited set of tools and you can’t just insta-teleport to safety. You also have to be way more careful about fuel distribution. In fact, I’m guessing this is a big part of how the later maps play: figuring out where to station tankers. That was already an element of the game, but it’s more pronounced now because gas costs money. You’ll also drive very differently when that tree stump can ding your suspension or your engine bangs into that rock, because repairs also cost money. Those little damage alerts which used to be all but meaningless are now expenditures you’ll definitely try to avoid.
Of course, this means you can also drive your whole game into a financial ditch and have to start over. But that’s kind of the point. It’s not truly “survival horror for trucks” if you can never die.
Oh god, I would hate this so much. It’s bad enough spending half an hour on a mission only to tip your truck over at the last minute. If that meant actually going backwards, rather than just wasting time, I’d never play the game again.
Oh, absolutely, and I can completely understand that. It’s definitely added as a way of tossing a bone to folks who want their Spintires/Mudrunner to be more punishing. I think the map challenges – called Trials? – do something similar in smaller doses. But this applies to the whole campaign and it’s glorious!
(At least it will be until I get stuck and rage quit and realize Ginger Yellow was right all along…)
That’s super tempting to try, but after a year and a half of not playing, I probably need a bit more time behind the wheel before I ratchet up the difficulty. Being dropped straight back in Alaska, my weirdo avatar waiting patiently where I left him in early 2021, meant a steep learning curve to get functional again.
Edit: screw that! You have to start over for it? I’m not sure I’ll make it very far if I have to begin again. I didn’t make it very far the first time, though I sunk a ton of hours into it (and loved it).
Until they release a “medium” mode, with a ‘less-harsh-but-existing’ economy, I’ll keep going as-is on my initial play. There’s way more content than I’ll likely ever see. And I can always give myself some house rules.
Anyone pay for the Jeep Dual Pack DLC? I did, 'cause I’m a sucker for Jeeps, and the Wrangler is immediately my favorite scout vehicle. Upgraded, of course. It gets a little top heavy and tumbly with the roof rack, but what scout doesn’t? It’s far better than the opening pickup or the Scout 800 or the disappointing Hummer from Alaska.
One of the bummers about all the DLC for Snowrunner is that it runs roughshod over the campaign structure by just giving you vehicles that are better than the ones you have to work your way to finding. The usual end run around early game progression. I’ll pass.
Which meant I was stuck with the scout and pickup for recon. And since I was playing on Hard Mode – I can’t go back to baby mode, I just can’t! – I managed to get everyone tumped over, stuck, or out of gas without even getting out of Michigan. So now if I want to keep playing, I have to shell out from my earnings for a rescue. Which I’ll do at some point, but for now I’m rage-hiatusing.
Maybe I should have enabled all the DLC, after all…
I am hopeful the Wrangler isn’t too over-powered (not compared to the Khan anyway). Everything I’ve read online says it’s nothing special as a scout. Maybe I’m fooling myself.
Medium mode needed. Because I just can’t start over. Two years into this game and I’ve only seen 3 maps! I just get caught doing stuff for hours and make little progress. Starting over means I’m likely never seeing the bulk of the game. (Not starting over also means I’m likely never seeing the bulk of the game).
Take, for instance, this weekend. I had almost three hours of gaming time and was able to complete 2 missions in Alaska before going back to the Dam in Michigan. Where I stumbled upon a White Western Star that I really want (after learning the Jeep Renegade can’t swim, but it can float forever).
I then spent the remaining hours of my time unsuccessfully trying to get the WWS via a Paystar that kept tipping over. Rinse / repeat. Rinse / repeat. Rinse / Sigh / Repeat. etc. etc.
That’s sort of my usual play session. Lots of game, very little progress. So I can’t start over. And even if I did I would lose immediately (clearly). I need medium mode that just consists of a basic economy.
Or some good house rules. How about…
Vehicles are locked to a region. If you want the same vehicle you own in a different region, you have to buy it all over again.
No vehicles can be left in storage. Either deploy them to a garage or sell them.
No Russian vehicles in American Regions.
No selling trailers.
Having to Recover a vehicle locks it out of use for the remainder of your calendar day (yours, not the games’). So my Paystar shenanigans above would not have been possible (albeit, they were still unsuccessful and the WWS was still stranded down a hill when I finished yesterday).
In case you wanted a little Forza in your Snowrunner, it looks like season 7 is your huckleberry. It’s called Compete & Conquer. That’s right, Compete & Conquer. Here’s the first bit of new content:
All kinds of stuff no one ever associated with Sliptires, Mudrunner, or Snowrunner! I hope it works out well for the game, but yeesh, those are things I have no desire to do in Snowrunner because there are games built from the ground up for that kind of rowdy silliness. And besides, all my trucks are currently mired in mud in hardcore mode, so I’m not going to be doing much competing or conquering…
I couldn’t agree more, though I have to wonder if maybe the developers are a bit bored at this point and that’s what’s driving this as well. Still, it’s not for me, but I’m glad they’re updating. I’m a mere 5 updates behind (not in ownership, but in player-ship), so I’m good for a while.
The Next Gen update dropped yesterday and for those looking to import their saves (or fearing there isn’t an option to do so), go to New Game - New Campaign and there’s a little import saves option at the bottom.
So, two questions. I just bought the game on sale on Steam with most, but not all, of the DLC. I’m starting it off with no DLC, so I don’t run into the trap of getting content before I’m ready for it.
I played about an hour and a half. At this point, should I start over and play on hard mode? I generally like a challenge and feel like the easy mode has some cheese in it. But I also don’t like controller-throwing frustration.
Second question is whether Snowrunner renders Mudrunner obsolete. I started Mudrunner a few years ago, and really enjoyed it, but for whatever reason, got distracted and never finished it. Will Snowrunner ruin Mudrunner for me, and is the latter game worth playing in a universe where Snowrunner exists.
Actually, more than two questions. Is there any DLC I should install off the bat? I assume that I can add DLC in later without breaking my game.
Will this be good on the Steam Deck? I feel like it will.
For me, the driving is plenty hard as is. I can spend/upgrade my way out of a couple jams, but not many. Unless you’re really good at figuring out how to min/max your upgrades, unlocks, and discoveries, I think the game is good at providing a challenge in the jobs to be done. I did a little research about best trucks and upgrades to pursue to guide my progress and really don’t feel like I hurt my enjoyment or made it too easy at all.
The hard mode that makes the whole economy more difficulty doesn’t sound fun at all to me. I don’t need something that takes me several attempts and failures already to also be gradually digging me into a financial hole I can’t get out of. But some people love that kind of pressure!
To the DLC question, I don’t know. I have the season passes so I have all the maps and vehicles that are included in those packs, but I’ve never bought any of the standalone vehicle packs. I think the maps are worth it, but I’ve never not had all of it so I don’t know how much I’d miss it if I waited and added it later.
Hard mode doesn’t actually make the driving harder - it’s the same maps, vehicles and bog holes. It just adds a layer to the economy of the game where you are now charged for recovering your vehicle to the garage - so if you have an irretrievable situation and are hopelessly bogged, you have to pay 4K or something to get your truck back to the garage. It also charges you for moving your trucks between maps, so some minor strategic stuff comes into play around what trucks you want to take forward to the second set of maps. What you can live with and what not, etc. It also encourages you a little more to rescue all the trucks so that you can sell them or use them. But most importantly, you have to pay for gas, so utilising all those trailers full of free gas around the place is critical. In this way it becomes more of a logistics game, where you’re towing trailers of gas to places on the map etc. If you run out of cash and all your trucks are stuck, it is game over.
It’s interesting - I played a game on hard mode recently after seeing @Zilla_Blitz’s nice videos on here a while back. I watched some other videos and Hard Mode does rely a bit on you having pre-existing knowledge as well - like where a certain truck is located on Map 3 that will help you out on Map 1 etc. I had great fun but had to set it aside after reaching Alaska as I was pretty burned out. I’ll go back in a couple of months.
All that said, I would absolutely tell you to play the game as-is for your first playthrough, no Hard Mode. There is plenty challenging about it without going for the more detail-oriented, almost pedantic (I know) game that is hard mode. The Smithfield Dam map is like something out of hell already without worrying about running out of cash. My first Hard Mode game failed at that point after about ten hours.
I have a fond place in my heart for Mudrunner but I have to say that it really is rendered obsolete. It is much more limited - you essentially carry a load of logs from the logging station to a point on the map, and you do this three times. I used to think that this was better than Snowrunner in some ways, because you were following the same ruts all three times, and they were getting deeper and more muddy each time, thus providing a unique challenge (Snowrunner’s ruts are less persistent, I thought). But that may be cognitive bias. In every other way, Snowrunner knocks Mudrunner out of the park. But there’s still a good game there!
I have played for probably a couple of hundred hours, and I’m not sure I’ve ever even reached the first set of DLC. I bought the Season One pass, and while I did use the vehicles, specifically the overpowered Khan scout, as they were preinstalled, I don’t think I made it to the maps. There is a huge amount of game already. But Season One is probably still a good buy. Oh, and Hard Mode disables the DLC vehicles - you can still find them on the map I think, but you don’t get them straight away.
Having spend a good bit of time with both modes, I think I prefer hard mode, but it feels more like a matter of how you enjoy games. Regular mode feels very much like a sandbox where you can just try stuff and take risks and have fun. The biggest difference between the two for me is 1) the pressure in hard mode to not screw up and 2) learning how to fix your screw ups in hard mode.
In regular mode if you come to an unknown section of the road or a task that seems hard, you can just try it, demolish your truck, and recover with no consequences. In hard mode, that decision to go forward is much heavier, because if you screw up, it could cost you a good bit of cash that you can ill afford to lose. That means that your better option when you flip a truck over in hard mode is to bring another truck in and try to rescue the first truck. Which of course can lead to even more dire consequences if you flip that second truck over. I really enjoy the pressure this brings to gameplay. You’ve got to think so much more deeply about where you go and what you try to do, and that sense of doom when you get in over your head is palpable. And money (so far) has always been tight, so I’m shuffling gas tankers around and always trying to drive with trucks carrying something, so that fuel expended = game progress.
You can rescue a hopeless financial situation by playing some multiplayer to make cash, by the way, which is kind of an insurance blanket over hard mode.
But hard mode takes longer, and for an already long game, that’s a major investment in time.
I played normal mode with a personal rule that I would never recover a vehicle I wrecked. It worked pretty well as long as I was disciplined. In 25 hours, i think I “cheated” three times, all of which were just me being too lazy to drive a vehicle back across the map.
If you can play that way, the big difference is the cost of repairs and fuel. I didn’t miss the extra stress of money in addition to trying to traverse the map, but I can see why someone would enjoy it.
Yup, agree with all this to an extent. I was pretty exhausted after completing the Michigan maps though, it wears you down. I needed to take a several month-long break.
I enjoyed your videos (there were three or four at that time) about it! Your enthusiasm really shines through, nice job.
I think that’s a great point about game length, and I do wonder about my endurance with the game. It seems like Hard Mode would take perhaps 1.5x to 2x as long to complete the entire game? Sometimes you can just space out for a second or two and there goes your truck, upside down. In regular mode, that takes just a few minutes, usually, to recover and get back to where you were. In Hard Mode, depending on how awkwardly the truck flipped, you could be there for a good half hour or more getting things sorted out. And it’s already a massive game, and continuing to grow.
And thanks for the kind words on the videos, Pedro. Glad you enjoyed them! :)
