The day has come. The Alaskan Road Truckers is finally hitting PC today. The release caps off a development that goes all the way back to… I can’t remember. It feels like I’ve been following this game for a very long time. It was originally called Alaskan Truck Simulator and was sponsored by the Discovery Channel, but that was eventually dropped. I’m just speculating, but it’s probably because it would be confused with Euro Truck Simulator 2.
According to the developer, Road Studio, they started as a small team but knew they needed more people to reach their vision. So they hired some veteran developers and quickly realized that they’d need to completely rebuild their code from the ground up.
As for my excitement about the game, the team has stated that their goal for it is to have you play as a person, not as a truck. In a lot of other truck simulators, you can’t leave your truck, so you are essentially the same entity as the vehicle. Alaskan Road Truckers not only lets you get out of the truck, but gives you plenty of reason to do so. I’m hoping that it connects with the same part of my brain that gets engrossed in My Summer Car.
Your trucker has needs like warmth, fatigue, and hunger, and you have to cut fallen trees with a chainsaw. This could be a new ennui simulator.
Stay warm out there
There was, at one point, a demo for Alaskan Road Truckers. I played maybe five minutes of it before I decided that I was definitely interested and wanted to wait for the full experience before diving in. The demo was totally janky, and judging by recent gameplay videos, that hasn’t changed, but it looks to be just the right amount of janky.
I am absolutely prepped and ready to either fall in love or be deeply disappointed. I am sincerely looking forward to either outcome.
Unfortunately, October is such a packed month for the release of games that I’ve been keeping an eye on. I lost track of a lot of them, and I just can’t fit them all in for review. Not without getting extremely bent out of shape. So, I’m just going to enjoy Alaskan Road Truckers like a civilian rather than a critic down in the trenches. But maybe I’ll let you know how things shake out.
Alaskan Road Truckers releases today on PC via Steam for $21.99. It will also be released on Xbox Series S and PS5 “soon.”
Published: Oct 18, 2023 09:01 am