Wreckfest: an Old Volvo, Championships and More Coming Soon...

Paul Jeffrey · Nov 14, 2017

After a long silence Bugbear Entertainment have confirmed their Wreckfest title is nearing completion.. with some interesting hints at new content / features on the way.

Many have fallen in and out of love with Wreckfest during what has been a tumultuous period of often glacial development progress these past few years, bowled over by what are rather solid graphics and vehicle damage, but turned off by a constant lack of core feature updates and new content.

When things were looking on the downslope for Bugbear and Wreckfest the community scoffed at news that the ambitions developers intended to bring the game to consoles in the near future, rightfully pointing out the title is nowhere near a version one stage, and showing high degrees of scepticism at the likelihood of the studio progressing to such a state as to having the game finally in a fully feature complete stage of progress..

Well it looks like these past few months of silence from the studio are about to be rewarded... the developers have confirmed the next patch is set to bring many of those things that players have considered essential for a fully completed game. In a blog post on the Wreckfest website it has been confirmed that the upcoming update will contain "loads of new unique cars, a proper career mode with championships, car paint job customization, brand new HUD, greatly improved AI, polished tracks and a lot more – in short, everything that will soon make Wreckfest a complete game".

Now it is a little on the early side for the developers to go into detail about what the update will contain or when it will finally drop, other than the preview image at the top of this article, however it is still very good news to hear this fundamentally very impressive arcade racer is finally closing in on a fully completed release. At last.

Wreckfest is available for PC through the Steam Early Access programme, with both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 releases scheduled for 2018.

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Do you still enjoy Wreckfest? Does the prospect of new content, features and polish give you faith that the game can finally achieve its undoubted potential? Let us know in the comments section below!

Paul Bennett · Nov 15, 2017

It's been a long road hoping it finally delivers a good game, had some good times with it. If the steering input improves along with FFB it's a winner for the simcades. I can see the console version's selling well

ShredatorFIN · Nov 15, 2017

What would you improve on the FFB? It's imo one of best things about it, at least on T500. Of course FFB is subjective and there isn't many sliders to tweak it, but I see that as good thing because it works so well out of the box

Rupe Wilson · Nov 15, 2017

After the last patch for me the FFB lost its finer detail.. it was actually very good.
you could feel the car in the slide, you lost that feeling and it was just like a fixed weight at times..
instead of feeling alive my wheel felt dull in my hands

now give me a proper clutch to go with my stick shift, sort the ffb out and im hooked for fun.

Now as for the Volvo... why the heck not bring it on bash it up..

Paul Bennett · Nov 15, 2017

Yep spot on Rupe the last build lost the FFB. I asked the devs if they can fix it for the next build, reply was" its on the back burner for now but will get on later.

Zuffenhausen Weiss · Nov 15, 2017

M D Gourley said:
Hmmm...old VOLVO you say, that's an odd choice for another old banger car possibly...what other Sim Developer has Volvo's in their Sim, a team up for their latest offering, a buy out maybe....Conspiracy Theory time...LOLOLOL

There was Volvo The Game

ShredatorFIN · Nov 15, 2017

Hmm I didn't test the previous build, maybe FFB was even better. But imo it's not too shabby even now

M D Gourley · Nov 15, 2017

Zuffenhausen Weiss said:
There was Volvo The Game

Yes, I do remember that and had it installed with every other SimBin sim back then...I still have 'SimBin's 'Race Injection' installed on my PC and it feels great on my TS-XW Racer.

KittX · Nov 15, 2017

Still no clutch?

formidable · Nov 15, 2017

Breaking an old Volvo? Impossible.

Frietpan · Nov 15, 2017

I got a very "destruction derby raw" feeling from the trailer, Wich is good so i might give it a go.
And maybe a game to get my non sim racing friends to play games with me lol.

ThomKlanc · Nov 15, 2017

Rob said:
Still waiting....

I'm not an owner, but if the physics are good and the suspension/tire dynamics are well coded, along with accurate tracks, I'm not sure you can call this arcade.

There are a lot of mods too that add better (less arcade-like) handling and a much tougher damage model to it. I've paired it with a mod that increases the amount of dust and smoke life and it is honestly a hell of a lot of fun to play. I'm excited to see what they add with the update, but if it's not to my liking, there's always ways to change that. That being said, most servers don't use mods, so they must be turned off for online play, but that's pretty much par for the course now

ShredatorFIN · Nov 15, 2017

Ilya Malyuev said:
Still no clutch?

Clutch is coming. Screenshot from devs post. Kind of basic thing would think but ehh

M D Gourley · Nov 15, 2017

Ilya Malyuev said:
Still no clutch?

Agreed...but it does not really bother me as I can 'Simulate' the action of using a clutch when driving these cars.

jlnprssnr · Nov 16, 2017

I still don’t get all the hate around the postponed release. Early access games on Steam always have this interview type thingy on the store page and if the devs don’t promise a release date there, you can’t really complain. Don’t get it if you don’t want a beta game, easy as that

Rupe Wilson · Nov 16, 2017

Fundamentally the sim is very good, and has been for a long time, yes we get the odd update and it breaks something and we have to wait again for it to be fixed.. again not the end of the world.. i fire it up it it drives good with the latest update i drive it ,, if it worse i stay away, but i do come straight back when the next update is released..

this sim is perfect for a fun night and this Christmas i intend to have a drive and a bit of fun over the festive season..over trying to make other sims do the same..

FeltHat · Nov 16, 2017

jlnprssnr said:
I still don’t get all the hate around the postponed release. Early access games on Steam always have this interview type thingy on the store page and if the devs don’t promise a release date there, you can’t really complain. Don’t get it if you don’t want a beta game, easy as that

its rly hate about whole game or it development rather postponed release (thats actually one good thing in this mess, it guarantees there will be release at all))

M D Gourley · Nov 16, 2017

Rupe Wilson said:
Fundamentally the sim is very good, and has been for a long time, yes we get the odd update and it breaks something and we have to wait again for it to be fixed.. again not the end of the world.. i fire it up it it drives good with the latest update i drive it ,, if it worse i stay away, but i do come straight back when the next update is released..

this sim is perfect for a fun night and this Christmas i intend to have a drive and a bit of fun over the festive season..over trying to make other sims do the same..

Absolutely agree...could not have said it any better myself

Kompressor · Nov 16, 2017

I like this game and I'll be back right after the update. I believe like after every update it will give me another 10+ hours of fun.))

The Flying Hun · Nov 16, 2017

Dirt Rally and Assetto Corsa were examples of Early Access programs that went superbly, limited to less than one year, and right according to announced plans and timetables. Wreckfest is a perfect example for why you nevertheless should be extremely hesitent to buy into Early Access. Worst example of EA I have ever noticed. What the difference between then and now is? I am four years older. I just do not care for this endless construction site anymore. I think the management is hopelessly dilletantic. And some of their meanwhile comments and announced plans do not gave me the impression they learned from it.

And while sopmebody said somethign accordiongly: Raceroom and Assetto corsa were not in development of their base version for four years: they saw later addon improvements. Raceroom also had a company breakdown, and a new team taking over and starting again, almost from scratch. What is Bugbear's excuse?

At least I got it cheap and did not pay full price, so I will not exaggerating my complaining. Half price or less, and construction site fun for some session's fun - well, yeah, somehow somewhere it might match, just so. But not more. If you want me to ever touch another Bugbear product in the future again, you have to pay me money.

ShredatorFIN · Nov 16, 2017

It's not even nearly worst, there is some outright criminal activity happening with the Steam Early Access games. Games that really aren't going to be finished.

At least Bugbear has new publisher now, THQ Nordic. It's obvious they ran into some problems behind the scenes. And are actively trying to do something towards 1.0, instead of running with the money and disappearing like so many shady EA developers. Steam is literally full of complete, calculated scams, with the tag "Early Access" in them. Where as Wreckfest has shaped quite far to being an actual game, already.

But yes you should be extremely cautious buying any Early Access games, I think people have learned that by now. It's mainly early access to your wallets, with zero guarantees of anything.

Also, don't think Assetto Corsa was really full release at 1.0 it's been in early access long after that, so to speak. Decent AI was added only 6 months ago.