Truckful is a delivery driving simulator where you play as a lone truck driver in a small town haunted by its mysterious past. Read on to learn our thoughts on the game, including its strengths and weaknesses.
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Truckful Review: One Rough, Bumpy Ride That Has Plenty of Heart Under the Hood
Games that go beyond their conventional genres are one of the most distinctive aspects that make the medium interesting, if not a little controversial. When NieR: Automata was released, nobody expected anything beyond traditional hack-and-slash combat, only to be greeted by twin-stick shooting and even isometric camera angles. Then there was Brutal Legend, where players suddenly found themselves playing a real-time strategy game on top of its action mechanics.
This complete subversion of expectations has turned games into an interesting matryoshka doll situation, where the more you open apart its layers, the more its story starts to makes sense. Thing is, games, especially indie titles like Undertale and Doki Doki Literature Club, can get away with playing around with it because there are really no restrictions on genres in the first place.
That brings me to Truckful, which is marketed as a “driving” delivery game where you’re a lone trucker hauling cargo and delivering packages to NPCs in an idyllic little town. However, developer MythicOwl doesn’t want to limit itself to that formula. Instead, it elevates the concept with a horror twist, plus a dash of Metroidvania elements.
You’d be surprised by how interesting Truckful blends its genre combinations throughout its roughly eight-hour journey. At its core, it’s still a delivery-driving game, evoking the same physics-based gameplay as Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding, but with familiar driving mechanics layered on top.
As I rolled through the game’s credits, what stuck with me most was its story, which is full of heart, rather than its gameplay, which caused me plenty of moments of frustration.
Small Town Driving With a Deep Mystery
Before we dive into the nitty-gritty details of Truckful, let’s start with its setting. Simply put, this game is about driving through a small town haunted by the shadows of its past. Think of the animated show Gravity Falls, but instead of playing as two siblings caught in a supernatural conspiracy, you step into the shoes (technically, wheels) of a faceless truck driver carrying cargo.
As you pass the town’s run-down road pavements and a couple of eccentric NPCs, you see this town is more than it seems. Demonic vehicles rampage through its forests, causing no one to go in or out of this town, except for you, of course, for reasons still unexplained even as the game’s credits rolled.
This is the first time these residents have seen an actual vehicle in their Twin Peaks-esque town, so helping them live their day-to-day lives is central to your job. You pretty much share the same job description as Norman Reedus in Death Stranding, except you're a four-wheeled protagonist without a fetus attached to your chest.
You do get to carry passengers in this game, though, like a child or a big old man on the cargo bed, though I still couldn’t completely understand why they couldn’t just get in the driver’s seat instead.
Beyond the driving, there’s plenty of lore hidden behind the game’s delivery setup, so unless you’re willing to dig deeper into its world by finding collectibles and reading through its lore pages, you might miss the mysterious origins of this tiny settlement. But even without sifting through all those texts, however, the story remains digestible enough to breeze through, as every major delivery helps push the narrative forward.
Not Your Typical Driving Game
Truckful is not simply “just a delivery driving game” as I mentioned earlier in this review. It's a horror game, but it’s also a metroidvania, or maybe even cozy. How much of each you experience depends on how you approach its setup, as this strange melding of genres is woven into Truckful’s gameplay loop. You never really know where it’s going next, but there are usually enough clues to prepare you for what’s coming. One moment, the game slowly shifts into horror as you venture deeper into the ancient forests. The next, it captures that cozy indie-game feeling as you drive past quiet glades and honk at sheep blocking the road.
Delivering cargo from point A to point B is the basic activity you’ll be doing here, but in between these deliveries, you’ll encounter roadblocks, both literally and figuratively. Demonic encounters such as giant evil trucks (and trains) chasing you in a dark forest are common, and you’ll sometimes have to cut through them to reach your destination on time. You can always find another way around and take the long route, but doing so risks failing the game’s optional objectives, which can earn you more money.
I don’t really want to compare this to Death Stranding too much, but I can’t help that it really does feel similar when it comes to its gameplay loop, especially with how horror is injected into an otherwise mundane task of deliveries. Sam Porter Bridges had to fight through BTs to reach his destinations, armed with little more than his guns coated with his pee and poop. In Truckful, however, you have far fewer ways to deal with these threats, as you’re simply a truck braving an uncharted forest with nothing but your headlights and an old man bouncing around in your truck bed.
But don’t let its horror aspects intimidate you as it is not exactly Silent Hill-level terrifying. It’s still in-line with its cozy horror vibes. Most of the fear factor comes from its standard chase sequences against vehicular monsters. The only real horror I experienced was forgetting to install a Navigator, getting hopelessly lost for an hour, and having to find my way through the creepy corners of its world until I found a garage to find my way back to the beaten path.
Pimping Your Ride in Truckful
Getting through these encounters is where the game’s car customization and semi-Metroidvania aspects kick in. Your truck is more than capable of surviving these threats, but you’ll eventually need to tinker with it using the monetary rewards you earn from deliveries and optional objectives, as well as the scraps you find scattered throughout the world.
Tuning up your car is essential to make the journey less tedious. Deliveries have this sort of Resident Evil 4 attache case-esque inventory system, where you have to carefully sort and organize your cargo, which is perfect for people who love meticulously arranging everything just right.
Upgrading your cargo setup can help alleviate storage issues, from the run-of-the-mill 2x2x2 trunk to a larger 3x4x3 setup with an enclosed cage, can help deal with the game’s frustrating physics mechanics, which I’ll talk about in more detail later. These upgrades become especially useful when you hit speed bumps along the road, where your cargo can go flying and hilariously fall onto the ground, forcing you to pick everything back up. For the first couple of moments, it was funny, then it became too annoying. In a delivery game, dealing with less than helpful mechanics means risking an encounter with demonic vehicles or wasting precious time trying to clear an optional objective.
Thankfully, there are other ways to deal with the perils of its physics system. Tools like Sticky Cargo are sci-fi pieces of equipment that temporarily glue your cargo in place, allowing you to hit the pedal to the metal without worrying about everything flying into the air. This tool was especially useful during my frustrating early hours as I was still getting used to the driving controls. More tools unlock as you progress through the story, with many of them essential for pushing the narrative forward.
This is where Truckful’s pseudo-Metroidvania design shines. You can’t enter certain areas without the right tool, and since you can only equip a limited number of them on your truck at a time, you’ll have to backtrack to a nearby garage whenever you need to swap one out. For example, using a Winch is essential for getting past a massive pothole filled with muddy water. If you don’t have it equipped, you’ll simply get devoured by nature, and it’s game over.
Exploring the rest of this town also requires you to bring the right combination of tools with you, since some areas have obvious gates that require a good ol’ ramming to break through or flooded waters you need to get past using a Snorkel (yes, it’s real). These exploration moments can also open up shortcuts that make getting around town a little easier, so paying attention to the road helps you become more familiar with its world. However, this becomes less rewarding as things start to feel repetitive and tedious later on.
Things Tend to Get Tedious
Hitting that game over screen isn’t a big problem for me, but having to rely on the game’s driving and physics system feels miserable because you can’t trust it one bit to help you on your journey.
There were moments when I’d drive through a rough corner, only for my car to suddenly swerve too fast, sending the physics into complete chaos and causing an old man I was carrying as cargo to just fly away. It was incredibly frustrating (and kind of funny). It doesn’t help that the game’s pickup system is so unintuitive that I never really knew how close I needed to be before the game would let me grab the cargo and put it back into the trunk.
That sense of frustration is evident during the game’s rough early hours, as getting used to the controls becomes your first major setback. Knowing which way to steer left or right with your keyboard or controller can be a challenge, especially as the game shifts its fixed camera angle at every turn and throws off your orientation. This can be particularly annoying during monster chases, as those sudden camera changes can easily lead to more unfortunate crashes.
The second setback is learning to make peace with the game’s lack of quality-of-life features where they're needed. Sometimes my truck (I call him John) gets stuck in a gate after I use the Boost tool on a ramp to get past it. The game gives me no way to “unstuck” myself, forcing me to keep revving the engines and hoping the collision grants me the grace of escape.
The only way I know I’m doing a good job is by finding the perfect cargo hold for my truck depending on my orders and organizing everything perfectly, rather than finding a better steering wheel or set of wheels to actually help me drive better. Even changing tools for my car takes so much work, since I have to find nearby garages along the road to swap in a tool I need to traverse an area I didn’t know required it. It would’ve been much better if I could seamlessly swap these tools from my inventory, or even bring a spare tool with me since it’s…a truck.
Truckful doesn’t have a fast-travel system either, but it does have tunnels and railroad tracks you can use to get from point A to B quickly. The problem is that these are also the darkest corners of town, where angry vehicles love to roam. It’s pretty much high-risk and very low-reward territory, especially when you’re still at the mercy of the game’s inconsistent controls.
So you’re more or less picking the safer routes rather than the roads less traveled. Having to backtrack all the way to a town without a quick fast-travel system before I take on another delivery feels incredibly limiting. Even Dark Souls had bonfires you could use to fast travel just to get to that blacksmith.
All of these issues persist and culminate in the game’s horror encounters, where giant vehicles roar with rage and chase you to the ends of the earth. Sometimes things end badly, but more often than not, I get to proceed smoothly simply by getting lucky enough that they don’t spawn, presumably caused by its random encounters. When things do go bad, a tiny speed bump can fling your car off the road, or you’re left praying your cargo stays intact through the entire encounter.
Gameplay That Opens Up and Trusts the Player
Not everything about Truckful is designed to frustrate, though. One of my favorite things to do in this game is help improve the village by repairing roads and fixing that massive pothole that’s been ruining one of my orders. It changes the lay of the land, essentially making your journey easier, but you really have to work for it. Other delivery orders are also around, like helping the community fix the broken Recycling Station so you can finally put the scraps you’ve collected to good use. Beyond that, however, most deliveries only reward you with money, although they’re repeatable if you want to keep completing them and try to beat your previous records.
While you’re playing as a faceless and voiceless protagonist, you still get to hang out with the game’s locals and learn more about its not-so-rich history, one marred by politics and mysterious government activities. That mystery kept me wondering throughout the game, pushing me to look past its frustrating controls just to see what would happen next.
It’s also very rewarding that the game trusts you enough to make conscious decisions about how to upgrade and customize your truck to better suit your deliveries, rather than hand-holding you throughout the journey. One example is changing your cargo size to better fit the number of deliveries you have, or choosing the right wheels for the job.
You really get to feel like an actual truck driver in Truckful, like reading road signs to figure out where you are and where you need to go next instead of relying on yellow paint. Of course, this can also lead to a couple of confusing moments, as you’re not always sure where to go unless you check the in-game map or remember what an NPC told you.
The more tools you acquire through its story mode, the more of the map opens up for you, and it’s something I’m deeply interested in exploring when I eventually come back to the game. There are plenty of secrets hidden throughout its world, and reaching a certain point in the story also gives you much more freedom to explore, essentially turning the game into a cozy delivery game rather than a horror experience.
Is Truckful Worth It?
Yes, Only If You Get Past its Rough Corners
Truckful’s mix of genres works surprisingly well together, creating a chimera of “cozy meets delivery meets horror” that shouldn’t even be possible, but somehow is. One minute you’re out delivering packages for the local journalist, and the next you’re running away from a speed demon hellbent on crushing your four-wheeled machine to smithereens. This story has heart, and its town is rife with secrets you can dig into if you’re interested.
It’s a game full of surprises, but it also tries too much at once, creating moments of pure frustration through inconsistent controls and a lack of meaningful quality-of-life improvements that could make the journey much smoother. If you can get past that massive barrier of tedium early on, there’s a surprisingly fascinating game here with so much love poured into it.
Overall, though, Truckful’s glaring speed bumps get in the way, but the little moving parts that ultimately serve its delivery gameplay, like its memorable NPCs and great story, will keep you seated in the driver’s seat. If you enjoy games like Death Stranding or Cloudpunk, this might be the kind of game you’d enjoy.
FAQ
Is There Free Roam in Truckful After It Ends?
There is a point of no return in the game, and it’s clear enough that it’s the final delivery. Unfortunately, there is no free roam afterward, as you can’t go back and complete any missing objectives. Pressing Continue simply takes you straight to the final cutscene, though this could be a bug or an oversight on the developers’ part.
How Scary is Truckful as a Horror Game?
Truckful isn’t really a scary game, much like Cult of the Lamb isn’t exactly about the horrors of running a demonic cult. It’s a cozy delivery game first, with its horror elements tied only to being chased down by monstrous cars with zero jumpscares.
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