RoadCraft preview: SnowRunner sequel sees you rebuild towns devastated by natural disasters

Clear debris, lay tarmac, and squish it down with a steamroller.

RoadCraft / Focus Entertainment

The most satisfying part of my behind-closed-doors demo of RoadCraft comes as Focus senior brand and creative manager Yann François hops in a bulldozer.

Driving over the mounds of sand he’s poured from his truck moments ago, he flattens it into a dense layer. The more he drives, the more sand mixes with mud, turning into a thick, beige clay that coats his tyres. Next comes the road paver.

This vehicle essentially lays down molten asphalt with the consistency of yogurt, coating the mud-sand mix. You can even see the heat haze emanating from the ground and distorting the surrounding area. “If you are a perfectionist or ASMR lover,” says François, “this is perfection.”

In Saber Interactive’s sequel to 2021 off-road driving sim SnowRunner, you play the head of a company specializing in restoring sites devastated by natural disasters. That means clearing debris, constructing bridges, establishing vital infrastructure, getting factories up and running, and yes, building roads. Now it’s time for the steamroller. 

RoadCraft / Focus Entertaninment

François drives over the freshly laid asphalt and compacts it, leaving behind a perfectly smooth trail and transforming the previously ugly, uneven surface into a mathematically perfect stretch of tarmac. It’s one of his favorite aspects of RoadCraft.

“What I love the most is the road-building missions, because they’re so precise, so satisfying, so new. You’ve never seen that before. Every road-building mission is challenging and all about being efficient.”

Where SnowRunner mostly gives you an assortment of trucks to play with, RoadCraft expands your remit with 40 vehicles from diverse categories. There are lethal tree cutters, nimble scout vehicles, and even towering cranes, all with cockpit views built-in.

An early mission on the first of RoadCraft’s eight maps tasks you with reaching the harbor and hooking it back up to the mainland. Days before, this tropical location suffered a devastating tornado. Bridges are down, roads have sunken into the slushy ground, and cargo containers lay strewn across the dock. To move them, you’ll hop in a crane and shift them aside like a giant arcade claw machine.

Next, you’ll establish the harbor as a transit point by linking it to another site. Here’s where you use your map to identify potential bases, scanning the 4km area like a hawk-eyed operations manager. When you find one, you’ll plot a makeshift route for your AI-controlled fleet of vehicles, whose journey you can follow using door-mounted cameras. Keep in mind, though, that if they get snagged on some debris or bogged down in a swamp on the way, that’s on you.

RoadCraft / Focus Entertainment

To actually build, you’ll need resources. These range from raw materials salvaged from the environment like wood, to components such as steel and cement you’ve put through your recycling plants. The trick is to keep factories and quarries producing resources passively so you can get on with the job.

Different biomes have different challenges. There are forest, mountain, and desert environments, each complete with physics-enabled terrain. Water will slosh into dirt patches and turn them into tire-sucking mud, while sandy hills cause your wheels to spin. In this game, though, you have more ways of dealing with it. 

“You don’t fight terrain anymore,” says François, comparing RoadCraft to previous series entry MudRunner. “You mold it, you shape it.” That’s by bulldozing, flattening, paving, or just avoiding it altogether. After all, if you don’t want to grapple with a muddy deathtrap, go around it with a bridge.

For this, you’ll need a smaller crane and a whole bunch of concrete slabs. Here’s where the game’s impressive physics engine falls by the wayside. You’re not actually building the bridge yourself, but picking up each slab with your claw and depositing them in a glowing blue spot on the ground. Once you’ve reached the quota, the bridge magics into existence. 

The flatbed truck is less-than-convincing, too. Its bed instantly fills up with sand when you park in the right spot. The streamlining might take some of the frustration out of RoadCraft, but it also reduces believability too, resulting in a game less even than its pristine roads.

RoadCraft / Focus Entertainment

While the new management layer is inconsistent, vehicles are a treat. One of the best is the trench digger, which François called “a masterpiece of animation.” It basically digs into the ground and implements an electric cable, which is crucial in bringing power back to regions and connecting them back to the grid. But RoadCraft is more than a dry simulator. “The game wants to make you feel like not just a driver, but the head of operations,” he says.

That’s where four-player co-op comes in. While it’s not part of my demo, in the final game you’ll be able to set up a co-op session for up to four players, dividing and delegating tasks or pulling together to focus on a single objective. You can even visit a garage to repaint your fleet and customize them with your company’s logo.

RoadCraft is like if SnowRunner gave you a promotion. The higher-ups saw your heroics and needed your skills in new areas. You’re no longer just a grunt on the ground, up to your neck in mud, but the big boss getting your hands dirty in all aspects of construction and renovation. Hopefully, they’re giving you a bigger salary.

RoadCraft releases 2025 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.