Review: Truck Driver – Heading North DLC
I bought and played Truck Driver on PS4 on its release back in 2019, and while being aware of its shortcomings and gameplay quirks, I still had a fairly enjoyable time with it…though the erratic driving of the A.I. cars always gave me the road rage that I never suffer from in real life.
Jump forward 4 years and my gaming has moved over (once again) to Xbox, so it was very kind of Soedesco to send me review codes for both the main game and the Heading North DLC.
Truck Driver and the new DLC is decidedly “last-gen” despite updated truck models and a few other tweaks here and there that have been added, so I wasn’t expecting anything to blow me away visually. Which is good really, as after I caught the ferry in the main map and travelled over to the new “Mangefjell” map, the first thing that hit me was the huge amount of texture pop in as I was driving to my 1st location. It made me feel like Project Genesis (a little Star Trek reference there) was constantly terraforming Mangefjell just a few feet in front of me as I made my way along the roads. It wouldn’t have surprised me if one mission had been transporting Spock’s empty coffin. I was hoping for a little better playing it on an Xbox Series X after moving from playing it on PS4.
As far as gameplay goes, nothing has really changed from the main game. The map is different of course, though still sparse…and while not quite as bad as I remember, those bloody A.I. cars still make the most unexpected and sudden turns right in front of you.
You still have to keep an eye on your fuel and stamina, stopping to refuel and rest whenever needed, while also making sure to keep damage to your truck to the minimum to help maximise your profits on each delivery.
With no ongoing narrative to follow, Heading North once again tasks you with meeting a variety of people and completing a series of deliveries for them. Upon doing so you’ll earn cash and experience points, both of which are used to make the whole process that little bit easier for you, ie: the ability to drive for a longer period of time before having to find a rest stop.
The UI is still clunky, making it far too tedious to do even the most simple of things, and the missions keep to the same repetitive gameplay loop of the original game.
Having said all of that you may well think that I didn’t enjoy playing this DLC, but there’s always been something about Soedesco’s Truck Driving game that has scratched a particular gaming itch for me. Admittedly it is no Euro/American Truck Driver that I play on my Mac, but it has a certain rough charm that I enjoy, which makes me (hesitantly) excited to see what their upcoming current-gen game “Truck Driver: The American Dream” will be like.
If you weren’t a fan of the original Truck Driver then there’s nothing here that will make you think otherwise, but if (like me) you quite enjoyed it, this may be worth picking up for some extended time on the roads…just watch out for those erratic drivers again.
Review by Dave from codes kindly supplied by Soedesco.