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Road Kings is sometimes American Truck Simulator in a disaster movie, but delivering crates of ellipticals is fun too
It's just missing Glenn Powell
When I sat down to play Road Kings in April, the event organisers were very clear: when you're done driving around in the sandbox, let us know and we will load up the disaster movie scene. After fifty minutes of my hour with Saber's spin on American Truck Simulator, I'd completely forgotten about the second mission. I was merrily absorbed in hauling truckloads of exercise bikes between the cities of South Georgia and Northern Florida.
Saber are definitely playing catch up with SCS Software. The latter's American Truck Simulator released over a decade ago and it now features nearly half of North America. Naturally, Road Kings will ship with a much smaller map and roster of vehicles. Though Saber hope to pull ahead by injecting a little drama.
While Road Kings has all the same bones as SCS Software's simulator – taking on jobs, driving between stops, earning money to start a trucking company – there is also an AI director hovering in the background ready to spice things up at a moment's notice. You may be driving down the freeway when a voice on the radio calls in asking for help. Another driver might want you to take on a job for them, a weigh station could be calling you in for a check of your cargo, or a detective might need help catching a killer on the run. Okay, not that last one, but the other two will happen.
They may not sound too dramatic but it does have implications for the game's other systems. Take a driver asking you to help with a delivery job for them. As you can take on multiple jobs at once, each with their own load, drop off location, and delivery time, you need to work out if you can help the driver and keep all your current commitments. And do it without falling asleep at the wheel. That means looking up your route, seeing if you can work in another drop off, and where in your schedule it could go. It also means more physical practicalities. Unloading goods takes time, even more so if you have to unload a late cargo pick up to access something else in the trailer.
Now consider what happens when you take on that other job. You're now under even more time pressure, in danger of ruining your relationship with your brokers and getting late fees on your deliveries, so you stick his heavy ellipticals in the back, even though it now puts you over your legal weight limit. Now if that weigh station call comes, you're suddenly going to pay a fine for trying to help.
While it's been a while since I booted up American Truck Simulator, the actual driving in Road Kings is comparatively good. Your truck has real weight and momentum to it, making sudden stops hair raising. That said – and bear in mind, the build I played is already four months old at this point – while the game would detect when I was speeding on the interstate and give me a ticking off, it's not always so accurate. It told me I was doing "Great driving" moments after I accidentally rammed into the back of a school bus.
And yet, Road Kings has driven right into my veins. Perhaps it's the logistics sicko in me, but give me a jobs board, map littered with depots, and variable rate jobs, and I'll go hog wild ensuring I don't take a job that doesn't maximise my profits.
It's happened again - I've forgotten the disaster movie scene. If I just talk about Road Kings as an American Truck Simulator contender, I may be burying the lede somewhat. As well as incidental jobs that get radioed in, there are also set piece missions that offer something that's definitely not in ATS.
Loading up the save file, I was taken to a fuel stop at the bottom of a country road. I'm told a storm is coming in and I need to deliver some repair materials to a wind farm up on the hill. As I climb up the narrow road, I pass cars parked up on the banks, warning triangles out, stranded from the heavy rain and strong winds. Further up the climb I find unluckier truck drivers, their loads tipped over and spilled across the road. I pass them cautiously, giving a grim nod of solidarity as I go.
The wind is picking up, the rain sloughing down, and the road is becoming icy from the cold. With a lot of careful driving, I reach the turbines and drop-off the goods. But then, as I take off down the narrow road, the wind becomes a hurricane. A turbine in the distance is spinning like a dervish. The generator at its centre sparks and explodes. A catherine wheel of flame pinwheels from its centre. Another turbine, this one closer, follows suit and one of its blades, lifted by the vortex, plunges down into the road, blocking my path. I pick up speed and follow the road back down to the highway, turbine blades and spilled cargo often blocking the road. A landslide sends trees spilling down all around me.
When I finally reach level ground, men in high vis jackets direct me down a flooded road and towards a parking lot where I take shelter for the night.
Thank goodness I survived. Tomorrow I've got to deliver some light bulbs to Jacksonville.
Travel, meals, and accommodation were provided by Focus Entertainment.