Trailmakers Review Summary

Fun and enjoyable gameplay: The game offers a fun and enjoyable experience with various modes and multiplayer options. Players appreciate the entertaining physics and continuous enjoyment.

High creativity and freedom: The game provides endless creative possibilities and freedom to build anything imaginable. It is praised for its creativity and lack of limitations.

Great learning tool: The game is excellent for learning physics, aerodynamics, and proportions. It is suitable for both beginners and veterans, encouraging creativity and learning.

Variety of buildable vehicles: Players enjoy building various types of vehicles, including cars, boats, tanks, and mechs. The game offers a wide range of parts and options for vehicle creation.

Good game mechanics: The game is praised for its good mechanics and overall enjoyable experience. It is considered one of the best games in its genre.

Excessive content locked behind DLCs: A significant portion of the game's content, including desirable features and customization options, is locked behind expensive DLCs. This practice is seen as limiting access to essential parts of the game.

High frequency of bugs: The game is reported to have numerous bugs and glitches, including physics bugs that affect gameplay. These issues range from minor inconveniences to significant problems that disrupt the gaming experience.

Physics and control problems: The game's physics are criticized for being unrealistic, inconsistent, and buggy. Additionally, the controls are described as awkward and janky, further detracting from the gameplay experience.

Lack of settings and customization: Players have noted a lack of various settings, including language, control, and weather settings. Additionally, there are complaints about the inability to change keybinds and the lack of cross-platform progression.

Server and multiplayer issues: The game suffers from various server-related problems, including performance issues, disconnections, and crashes. These issues significantly impact the multiplayer experience.

Diverse vehicle building mechanics: The game offers extensive options for building and designing various types of vehicles, including cars, planes, boats, and robots. Players can use voxel-based mechanics to create and transform their vehicles.

Multiplayer gameplay options: The game features a variety of multiplayer modes, including challenges, servers, and deathmatch. Players can enjoy the game with friends and engage in different multiplayer interactions.

Creative building and sandbox: Players have the freedom to build structures and explore in a sandbox environment. The game offers creative building options and a platform for brick-by-brick construction.

Physics-based construction: The game includes physics-based building mechanics, allowing players to create mechanical contraptions and learn about game physics. This adds a layer of realism and complexity to the construction process.

Campaign and story modes: The game features campaign content with two base campaigns and story modes. Players can engage in story-driven gameplay and fetch quests.

Optimization and performance: The game has mixed reviews regarding optimization. Some players find it well-optimized and running smoothly on various hardware, while others report performance issues and the need for better optimization.

Multiplayer lag and performance issues: Many players report experiencing lag and performance issues in multiplayer mode, affecting the overall gameplay experience.

Bugs and glitches: Players encounter various bugs and glitches, ranging from minor issues to significant problems that affect gameplay, including crashes and physics engine malfunctions.

Game crashes and stability problems: The game has stability problems, including frequent crashes and issues that make it unplayable after updates, particularly noted during specific events like the final boss fight.

Camera and graphics settings: The game offers adjustable graphics settings and different camera modes, which are appreciated by players. However, some effects like motion blur and camera smoothing have mixed reviews.

Recommended for creative builders: This game is highly recommended for players who enjoy building and creativity. It offers a variety of building mechanics that cater to creative and engineering-minded players.

Highly recommended game: Many players highly recommend this game to others, especially those who enjoy versatile and complex games. It is suggested for a wide audience, including fans of maker-type games.

Ideal for multiplayer and friends: The game is best enjoyed with friends and offers multiplayer servers for a collaborative and fun experience.

Worth buying on sale: The game is considered worth buying, especially when on sale or at a discount. Players suggest purchasing the game and its DLCs during sales for the best value.

Airborne DLC recommended: The Airborne DLC is frequently mentioned as a worthwhile purchase, especially for those who enjoy planes and additional content.

Community fair range: $2.50 - $8.74.

Game completion: 40.0h.

Story completion: 24.0h.

The game becomes more enjoyable as players progress and get better at building, with initial friction due to learning curves and suboptimal early builds. Multiplayer modes add to the fun but can be buggy.

Reported time to anchor: 1h.

Friction: Initial learning curve; First few builds being suboptimal; Multiplayer bugs and crashes; Repetitive missions.

Unlock drivers: Improving building skills; Progressing through campaigns; Playing with friends.

Creative Builder: Enjoys spending time in building mode, creating detailed and unique vehicles, and experimenting with different designs. Motivation: Building and designing unique vehicles. Stance: sale.

Social Competitor: Enjoys multiplayer and cooperative gameplay, engaging in PvP battles, and playing with friends. Motivation: Playing with friends and engaging in PvP battles. Stance: sale.

Critical Consumer: Critically evaluates the game's development and business practices, often frustrated with the amount of DLCs and paywalls. Motivation: Seeking a fair and enjoyable gaming experience without excessive monetization. Stance: no buy.

The game generally performs well on higher VRAM systems, with more issues reported on lower VRAM configurations. Players with 12GB VRAM or more report fewer performance problems.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. Mostly positive performance reports despite some lag and crashes.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: positive. Runs great with fine performance and optimization.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: positive. Generally plays great with occasional FPS drops.

Steam Deck: The game 'Trailmakers' has several significant issues that impact the user experience. The most notable problems include control issues, performance demands, UI/UX problems, save data synchronization issues, and compatibility issues with certain devices. These issues collectively contribute to a frustrating and less enjoyable gaming experience.

Linux and Proton: The game generally has good compatibility with Linux, as reported by multiple users. However, there are mixed reviews regarding its compatibility with Steam Deck, with some users experiencing issues with keyboard functionality.

Monetization: The game 'Trailmakers' has received significant criticism for its aggressive monetization strategies, particularly the excessive amount of DLCs and the practice of locking essential content behind paywalls. Many reviews highlight the pay-to-win mechanics, where powerful items and blocks are only accessible through purchases, giving paying players a substantial advantage. The perceived greed of the developers, frequent DLC releases, and the high cost of these DLCs have led to frustration among players. Despite these issues, some reviews acknowledge the developers' responsiveness to community feedback and the release of free updates, which are positive aspects of the game.

DLC mentioned: A reviewer mentioned the DLC. No further details were provided.