Star Trucker, more than anything, is all about the vibe. Transplant classic Americana into the far future and add some spectacular visuals and you’ve a strong base, but while Star Trucker’s early game vibe sets it up on good footing, it’s tough first few hours and glacial pace, among other issues, ultimately held it back from finding that fun sweet spot between precarious survival mechanics and trucking simulation.
Star Trucking, across the universe…
When starting Star Trucker, you’re presented with a selection of game modes. It’s a choice I like, allowing you off the bat to tailor your gameplay to focus on the trucker aspects, or the survival mechanic aspects of the game. I chose the recommended balanced gameplay and was pleased that even within the set gameplay modes, there is further customization available, allowing players to fully tailor their experience.
The opening tutorial job introduces you to the basic gameplay concepts. An in-game manual in your truck’s glove box is available for further reference. The manual is a useful tool to remind yourself of basic concepts, but much of the intricacies are left to be discovered via playing the game, leaving many aspects feeling that they lacked even a basic explanation. Between this and the intentionally hard economics of the early game, Star Truckers has an unexpectedly harsh learning curve.
After the initial tutorial though, you’re left to your own devices, allowed to explore the game’s world at your own pace and guided by side-jobs unlocked through the game’s skill tree. Once unlocked, side jobs are offered by the games cast of what I, as a Brit, would take to be various stereotypes of American Truckers. I liked them. Sure, the dialogue could be a little bit awkward and “cringey” at times, but the voice acting is solid and fits effortlessly into the vibe the game is presenting.
It was a shame then, that the side-job “story” missions often felt unrewarding. Despite being the main way to unlock new areas and content throughout the game, the missions themselves were often dull, time-consuming activities that felt more like chores necessary to complete for the prospect of more lucrative haulage jobs that barely compensated for the resources used to complete them.
This was a common thread throughout my experience playing Star Truckers. As pretty as the game can be at times, and as enjoyable as the vibe was in those first few hours, the gameplay just never seemed to match it.
The early game in particular, where arguably it matters the most, often felt performative. The game revolves around traveling through jump gates, hauling cargo between the numerous star systems, but completing jobs never felt particularly rewarding, nor was there a sense of urgency to complete them. Star systems, often providing road like star-lanes between gates, were short, lifeless pit stops to break up the monotony of gate jumps. In-game, much of the time spent on your haulage route will be spent traveling along these gates rather that in-system. This causes a disconnect between the time you spend “driving” on any route and the in-game time, making it difficult to foster a sense of urgency for jobs requiring delivery within a specific time frame.
With maintenance tasks feeling like busy work and money sinks for the early game, able to be reduced in frequency and severity through upgrades, the gameplay started somewhat frustrating before settling in to a repetitive gameplay loop, that constantly teetered on being a bore.
Trucking on ice… in space!
I truly suck at navigating 3D spaces. In any game, give me a plane, a submarine or a spaceship and I will give you a painful demonstration of why that was a bad idea and playing Star Trucker was no different. The game is set in space, so 3D navigation is a necessity and while eventually, I got the hang of it, at no point did I ever really enjoy navigation within the game.
Your truck’s controls were the biggest issue I had with the general gameplay of Star Trucker. Your truck is very floaty and, I get it’s supposed to be a representation of the how something would actually conserve momentum in a given direction in space, but it felt awkward at best.
I never felt in full control over the movement of my truck, with it drifting away from any direction I would point it in an attempt to stabilize and with a trailer attached anything but the most gradual of stops would massively shift your position as the trailer continued on its previous path.
The floaty movement often combined with my next big grievance, the camera. The infinite depth of space meant it was difficult to judge distance from objects such as road signs and other vehicles, and the camera only made this worse. Exterior views don’t zoom out enough to allow angles to judge surroundings better and, when driving in first person, the view is further obfuscated by the truck itself. Switching between the camera views was essential to properly being able to assess surroundings, manage your truck systems and avoid collisions – something which at first, I was awful at.
NPC trucks in Star Trucker are on a set path, of which resistance if futile. Stopping outside of designated parking bays to make repairs in busy areas is an invitation for a collision. NPC truckers will let you know of their impending arrival but will make no effort to avoid you. Hilariously frustrating when parked to make repairs or manage a power system, and your truck is yeeted away from you by a trucker intent on reaching their destination, but genuinely annoying when in a star-lane. While a truck may appear to not be in the way from a distance once they start alerting you to their presence, a collision is fairly unavoidable.
In the end, this was something I circumvented by driving under the star-lanes, avoiding being close enough to signage and other trucks to risk a collision in the first place. While collisions with trucks and signage were the most frustrating due to the difficulties in judging distance, they were, thankfully, fairly infrequent once I stopped being completely incapable of driving without hitting anything.
Far more common were collisions with debris strewn across systems, often found around star-lanes or in systems where lanes aren’t available. Debris ranged from near-invisible small asteroids to large space junk and wreckage. One system was a maze of huge asteroids needing to be carefully navigated, reminiscent of the asteroid scene from The Empire Strikes Back, while most other systems feature a substantial amount of the smaller asteroids.
Collisions with these were often merely a nuisance, causing damage to build on your truck and occasionally requiring you to repair a hull breach. Inconsistency from debris caused further frustration. At times, large debris would simply bounce off your truck with no damage and at other times, tiny debris would cause your truck to violently veer off in a random direction. Any collision will inevitably cause damage to your truck, and this could transfer to your haul leading to multiple penalties that often-felt unnecessarily punishing with fines for careless driving, multiple deductions from your final earnings for the job, having to conduct hull repairs, and pay for further repairs at the body shop.
Fines and lost earnings from collisions, even minor ones, had the potential to quickly drain funds and lead to a death spiral of debt. Hull repairs, batteries and other items used to manage the truck’s systems could all be fairly expensive, particularly if you share my luck with systems regularly requiring replacement at similar times, leading to hefty shopping bills.
Sturdy, but no flash
It can be hard not to focus entirely on the negatives — they’re the things you want to talk about. Despite the issues I had with my experience playing Star Trucker, I can feel the strong base that the game is working from. Once past the early game hardship, I enjoyed the vibe of turning on the in-game radio and just delivering cargo; the core gameplay loop is there, and it works, but in the end, it just felt like it was missing something. The need to manage truck systems provides an interesting twist but is too simple to remain engaging, similarly when Star Trucker is able to embrace its relaxed gameplay in stunning environments, it feels wonderful, but star systems feel small when just passing between gates, the busiest of systems manage to feel empty and frequent framerate drops contribute to the shattering of that atmosphere.
Star Trucker shows its positives often enough though, that I would struggle to say its anything except a good game. Perhaps in the end, the gameplay just didn’t quite gel with me; or it was close, but not quite what I was expecting or wanted from the experience. Perhaps I’m not quite the right kind of player.
Star Trucker is a game that I can’t decide if I like or not. I feel its allure and often find myself wanting to dive in and enjoy the vibes as I traverse the galaxy soaking in solar flares and snaking between hulking asteroids. But ultimately, when I do, I just don’t enjoy it as much as I want to, or should.
The Review
GOOD
