Wreckreation review for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X

There was a time when Wreckreation probably would’ve been my most anticipated game of the year. I mean, the guys behind the Burnout series at Criterion Games, finally making an open-world successor to the games that made them famous? That would’ve seemed like a sure thing.

Of course, we now have plenty of evidence to show that such optimism is misplaced. Dangerous Golf was a dud, as was Danger Zone, and Dangerous Driving was no better. So it should come as no surprise that Wreckreation is no Burnout, either.

It certainly tries to be, though – and that’s its biggest problem. Yes, it has plenty of cars, and yes, it has a big map, and yes, there are crashes. But Burnout games had better cars with better handling, a more interesting and varied map, and much more spectacular crashes.

To be fair, Wreckreation was clearly developed with an online community in mind, and without much of a community (at least not yet), it’s hard to fully judge the game. Wreckreation gives you plenty of tools to create a more interesting map, allowing you to place looping tracks and crazy jumps so that gravity is basically optional. It’s entirely possible that, in time, this will have a dedicated fanbase that makes the game worth playing.

But it’s certainly not there now. The map is the first place you notice how lacking the game is. Without creations, it feels like a barren wasteland, with lots of randomly placed gates and guardrails that feel like they were placed there just to smash through. Wreckreation brags about having 400 square kilometres of track, but there’s nothing distinctive about any of it.

The other glaring issue is the handling. Cars are completely unpredictable from moment to moment: sometimes they’ll slide around a corner with ease as you drift, only to feel sticky and sluggish around the next corner. You can slam into one of your opponents and have them keep going like it’s nothing, but other times you can send them flying into the air just from driving too close.

Speaking of which, seeing as the Burnout games were known for their amazing crashes, it’s really disappointing to see that dialled way back in Wreckreation. I know it’s a smaller team, but it’s emblematic of how disappointing the game is that there are plenty of service stations with pumps and trucks transporting bright red barrels all over the place, and running into them does literally nothing. Maybe that’s just me expecting too much, but seeing as some crashes trigger a Crash Time camera, it’s clearly meant to be a part of the game.

And, of course, it’s important to mention the glitches. In fact, it’s impossible to avoid them, since you’ll see them constantly. Admittedly, they also lead to moments of humour, like when I fell off the side of a pier, slowly slid down the wooden pole supporting it, and then sat there spinning my wheels until the game suddenly realized my car was no longer upright, and out of nowhere I exploded. Or the time when I drove into a parking lot to switch cars, and somehow the game decided I wanted to drive both at once, so my new car had my old car jutting out of its roof for a few moments, until once again I exploded.

If nothing else, I guess, it’s quite possible that Wreckreation becomes a meme game with random explosions like that. But you’d have hoped that after ten years trying to recapture the brilliance of Burnout, Three Fields Entertainment would be further along than this. Wreckreation is better than anything they’ve done so far, true, but it’s still very far from the kind of racing game that anyone will want to play.

THQ Nordic provided us with a Wreckreation PC code for review purposes.