There's barely more than a demo in Wreckfest 2's early access debut, but I can't stop playing it

Have you ever stopped to really consider vehicle damage in games? The unfathomable number of complex calculations it must take to deform a car’s materials in real-time, in a way that makes you nod to yourself? The way an impact leaves a precise and unique fingerprint, a story about poor judgment told through the medium of crumpled bodywork?

Bugbear has. The Helsinki-based master of the virtual write-off is back with a sequel to its deliciously simple 2018 racer meets demolition derby, and once again the standout feature is a fantastically detailed damage model. Only BeamNG GmbH are on this preposterously high level when it comes to crash physics, and with the visual fidelity having been cranked up relative to both the first Wreckfest and the veteran BeamNG.drive, this sequel could take the overall crash crown when it makes it to full release stage.

Also just like the original, Wreckfest 2 is an almost confrontationally straightforward proposition: you pick a car, and you race that car against others like it on a track. When you make contact with other cars, or stationary objects—and you will—the resulting crash will be both physically sound and visually spectacular. Then you do it again.

While that description glosses over the finer details of its predecessor, like its career mode and roster of improbable vehicles like motorised sofas and tricked out ride-on lawnmowers, when it comes to Wreckfest 2 it’s rather more literal. At this stage of its Early Access development you’re getting a slender content offering comprised of solo and online races using four cars and seven track layouts over three locations, plus a bonus muck around-type space that’s full of creative ways to mangle your motor, including some that hark back to Wreckfest’s very earliest tech demos. You can race with up to 24 opponents, and tweak race lengths in custom events.

It’s very Early Access, then, as the game makes perfectly clear on its Steam page, but it’s a point worth underlining here because until the first content patch arrives in May with two new cars and two tracks, what we early adopters have to play with is about the shape and size of the demos that used to appear on the discs that came with your PC Gamer magazines.

‘Early Access game is light on content’ isn’t really worth stopping the presses for, but what is striking is that I’m finding that ultra-lean portion of high-contact racing is keeping my attention for longer than it has any right to. Particularly as a PvP proposition.

And that doesn’t come without its teething troubles, either. I’ve had quite a few crashes to desktop when searching for online races, and less frequently I’ve CTD-ed mid-race, too. My veteran RTX 2080 TI doesn’t seem to like the Savolax Sandpit much either. Arriving there drops my frame rate down into the 30s using the same settings that produce a stable 60 elsewhere. Imagine how much I, a games media writer, licked my lips upon discovering that this racing game that’s all about spectacular collisions and detailed damage modelling… crashes quite often. Imagine the notes full of puns I wrote on my phone and then thought better of. But honestly I don’t feel particularly compelled to lambast Wreckfest 2 for these issues, given where it is on the dev timeline. And more importantly, how much sheer enjoyment it delivers.

It’s so liberating to race in an online environment where making contact doesn’t mean tanking your safety rating, serving LFM bans, or sifting through salty Discord messages. Deliberately, wilfully ruining someone else’s race here isn’t just permitted—you actually get scored on it. T-Bone! Nice work, have 500 points.

The liberation works both ways. As much fun as it is to be bullish and smash into competitors, it’s also refreshing to have your race utterly destroyed and shrug it off. Because this is Wreckfest 2—what did you expect would happen?

Personally I find that compelling enough to put in at least a consistent half-hour a day of guilt-free PvP. There’s a subtlety to causing devastating accidents without overly involving your own car in them, and with Wreckfest ramping up its damage realism, learning that subtlety matters. It’s all too easy to lose a tire and inherit the turning circle of a detached house. Taking heavy impacts to the front will damage the radiator, leaking coolant and eventually overheating the engine so much that it blows a gasket. These things are sub-optimal states for taking a win.

Oddly enough, the damage never seems to get terminal, but it’s not clear whether that’s an intentional feature designed to keep you racing no matter what, or just a function of the game’s early state.

So I’ve put some time into just gently, insidiously, nudging the rear of the car in front, helping it into a spin that's impossible to correct, while barely having made contact with it. I’ve learned the best overtaking spots on the Savolax Sandpit and the Scrapyard that don’t end in inevitable pile-ups (generally the harder braking zones, on the inside rather than outside, so you’re clear of everyone who overshoots the turn or just wants to t-bone you).

I’m getting better at reading those glorious, terrifying intersections of track on the Sandpit’s ‘Bonebreaker’ layout and the Speedway’s figure-8, where when the pack stretches out it turns back to face itself at a 90-degree angle, and where the crashes are so high-speed that your car ends up looking like it went through a trash compactor.

Learning those specific nuances of Wreckfest 2’s racing, which were admittedly also present in the last game but presented in less high fidelity spectacle, is keeping this startlingly barebones build in my regular rotation. It’s the roughage in a balanced diet to complement The Crew Motorfest’s refined sugar, and ACC’s lean protein.

There’s an extremely solid foundation here to build upon. The handling model is staunchly arcade, but lacking not one ounce of weightiness and detail. The trackside detail is markedly improved in comparison to the previous game, and while customisation isn’t yet anywhere near as involved as it was in Wreckfest—you can basically just paint individual bodywork panels, that’s it—Bugbear has stated that the full game will include ‘full car customisation from performance to cosmetic’.

Also arriving at some point between now and the full launch are tournaments, mod support, a career mode, and persistent progress across solo and PvP modes.

As for what else is on the way, we’re left guessing. The idea here is that the early adopters get a say in shaping the overall direction of the game, and as noble and democratic as that is, personally I’d prefer Bugbear to establish its own creative vision for Wreckfest 2 and forge ahead. Community feedback is great, but leaning too hard on design by committee leads to simply firing content at the wall and seeing what sticks. It’d be nice to have some indication at this early stage that this won’t happen.

Your mileage may vary, of course. Maybe you’ll tire of the demo-like offering more quickly than I did. Many players will see what’s on offer and decide it’s too early to make the investment, and if you’re not sold on three months of quick races, it’d certainly be wise to hold off until the first content drop in May. Hopefully by then we’ll also have a clearer sense of the direction this game’s taking, because great crashes and endless quick races will only take you so far.

It’s an exciting start to Wreckfest’s journey, though, and one built on the rock-solid foundations of gratifying impacts, spectacular visuals, sound arcade handling and masterful track design. The original Wreckfest never did propose a convincing answer to what it should do long-term with those same attributes, but maybe this time Bugbear has a clearer vision. If it is, it’s keeping it quiet for now.