It’s hard to write this review as Wreckreation is clearly a labour of love from some core developers behind the much-loved Burnout franchise, and you can feel where the game could be at.
Admittedly my personal preferences lay back when Burnout was a more linear experience – I was never taken with the open-world Burnout Paradise - but there are moments in Wreckreation in which great ideas and choices shine through, yet they always seem to either be shot down by heavier duty issues, or design choices that appear to be opposing forces during development.
Wreckreation begins with a narrator describing how the game works to you as you make your way around a clearly unrealistic, above-ground track filled with curves and loops. As I got used to the arcadey controls, and pretty breezy mechanics, I was intrigued as to which way the game would go; would I be entering race after race? would I spend my time building gnarly tracks to smash through? Or would I travel the huge open-world map, picking up collectibles, unlocking awesome stuff and tuning up my ever-expanding car collection? This 400km world was mine to reap!
It’s not something I usually complain about, but my word, the tutorial ended early. Yes I knew how to drive, turbo, and race but the game’s pseudo-cool terminology was just outright vague.
It’s not something I usually complain about, but my word, the tutorial ended early. Yes I knew how to drive, turbo, and race but the game’s pseudo-cool terminology was just outright vague.
What did ‘Live Mix’ mean? Why were options for renaming and colouring my car more easily accessible in the option than changing the car itself, and how did I unlock cars?
It didn’t help that the music selection was trying as well, with none of the – admittedly myriad stations – settling on a vibe that I felt suited the game or my mood, so I dipped the volume in the settings as it was either piercing retro music, headache-inducing trance, or tedious punk.
At first, I just got my bearings by driving around the incredibly expansive world map, where I had some fun crashes and got to enjoy the sense of speed, although I noticed that there were only two camera options, and the angle of the camera couldn’t be adjusted with the right thumb-stick.
This may seem a strange niggle, but when you are racing at high speeds over undulating landscapes, it’s very easy to be looking up at the back of your car as you reach sharp corners, so you have no sense of the landscape rapidly approaching, leading to cheap crashes.
Speaking of crashes, whilst there are some spectacular ones that you can either drive away from (or reset from) the way your car reacts to the environment is pretty random. Not an issue when you are just pottering around the open-world side of things, but in races, I quite often failed due to coming slightly off the track and apparently knocking a stone buried in the grass, that would see my car raise a wheel or two slightly, leading to a slow-motion cinematic ‘crash cam’, but then see me roll to a slow stop with no clear issue, as the game acted as if I’d just flipped into a fireball from the contact, it wastes precious seconds and works against the speed-demon fun factor that the game seems to be trying to portray.
Speaking of crashes, whilst there are some spectacular ones that you can either drive away from (or reset from) the way your car reacts to the environment is pretty random. Not an issue when you are just pottering around the open-world side of things, but in races, I quite often failed due to coming slightly off the track and apparently knocking a stone buried in the grass, that would see my car raise a wheel or two slightly, leading to a slow-motion cinematic ‘crash cam’, but then see me roll to a slow stop with no clear issue, as the game acted as if I’d just flipped into a fireball from the contact, it wastes precious seconds and works against the speed-demon fun factor that the game seems to be trying to portray.
The races themselves are a bland affair, where you are more embattled with these aforementioned ghost crashes and camera issues than the other racers themselves. Irritated with all of this, I tried to explore the open world just to unlock some stuff and make the game more exciting, but aside from finicky billboard smashing (you are usually always going too slow – so you don’t reach the billboard – or too fast – so you jump above it), a handful of collectibles, or over 300 gates you get to drive though (yay?), it’s a pretty empty experience.
So I moved on to my third option – creating some cool tracks and jumps...only to find that you needed to drive around the world to unlock almost anything of interest, so I could place letters and a handful of Halloween emojis in the game...and nothing else. 
Oh, and you can only scroll through the alphabet one way, so even spelling out names etc. on the track takes far longer than it should. All of this adds up to an experience that made feel feel like there were two different teams pulling the game in separate directions.
Yes, there’s a big online aspect of the game (no local co-op), but why?
The basics and fundamentals just aren’t here to make the game a fun experience solo or with others, and it’s heart-breaking, as a pared down and more focused game could have been really special as the visuals and arcade handing are all there and ready to rock.
SUMMARY
Wreckreation is a game with huge ideas that didn’t just not quite have the budget to realise them, it pulls itself in too many directions from the off, and that results in a title that feels empty and desolate and as harsh as it is to say, I think this is beyond patching up, I think it’s too far gone in the wrong directions to save at all.
Wreckreation is a game with huge ideas that didn’t just not quite have the budget to realise them, it pulls itself in too many directions from the off, and that results in a title that feels empty and desolate and as harsh as it is to say, I think this is beyond patching up, I think it’s too far gone in the wrong directions to save at all.
5.5/10
MELTING
🧊💦
(also available on Xbox One, PS5, GeForce Now, Windows)
Developer – Three Fields Entertainment
Publisher – THQ Nordic
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