Look, I certainly wouldn’t call myself a trucking nerd – I’m not even sure I could tell the difference between a carburettor and a carbonara – but I do like to . American Truck Simulator has long been my equivalent of one of those mindfulness apps that whisper gently evocative nonsense at you in the dead of night; a world of seductively monotonous rhythms and repetitions set against a soothing soundtrack of engine drones and indicator clicks. And for the eyes, the majesty of nature: lakes, mountains, forests (or at least a decent enough facsimile thereof), sprawling from hard shoulder to sky. So imagine my delight when I stumbled across Star Trucker – all that calm the most expansive natural vista of all: space!
Star Trucker
Developer: Monster and MonsterPublisher:Raw Fury Platform: Played on PCAvailability: Out TBC 2024 (Steam)
Ordinarily, these X meets Y comparisons feel a little trite, but in Star Trucker’s case – going on the evidence of its Steam Next Fest demo, at least – you’re going to struggle to find a more apt description than ‘American Truck Simulator in space’. This is big rig cargo hauling on an interstellar scale, a stately back-and-forth between pick-up and drop-off set against an ever-shifting canvas of shimmering nebulae and screen-filling worlds.
For all its fanciful sci-fi flavour, though, Star Trucker plays the whole thing surprisingly straight, grounding its slightly ridiculous high-concept premise in the minutia of the mundane. Which isn’t to say it doesn’t have bags of personality – this is the far-flung future by way of Route 66, with an ever-present country and western twang on your radio, an incessant southern drawl on your CB, and just enough quaint Americana to give the endless void a distantly familiar sense of place – but its eye is firmly on the road, not on the stars.
Its delivery loop is a reassuringly familiar one, cosmic displacement aside: fuel up, pick a job – perhaps a one-stop hop or a long-distance haul – load up your cargo then ease into the old routine, tracing signs along highways, keeping an eye on the clock, and ensuring property destruction stays at a minimum until you reach your goal. Only here, the highways are soaring helixes of hi-tech barriers and bobbing road lights, hazards are wayward meteorites and hurtling space detritus, and junctions are warp portals capable of catapulting you between systems with the sort of dazzling light show that would make George Lucas proud.