It’s slow too, with multiple levels stretching out for miles as you take them on at a decidedly sedate pace. I hate to throw around contrived comparisons but this is the Dark Souls of driving games – or Contra, if you’re of a certain age – and if you haven’t got things just right the game will eat you up and spit you out, even on Casual.

It’s an odd comparision to make, but it feels more akin to Snake Pass than it does to Dirt Rally, as you try and work out how to achieve the required result with the tools you’ve been given. In fact, Spintires: MudRunner feels less like a driving game and more like a puzzle one. The physics engine at work here is genuinely remarkable. It cakes your wheels, deforms as you truck sinks unevenly into it, and becomes a thick mire that you’ll have to winch yourself out of time and time again. While game’s like last generation’s Sega Rally and Codemaster’s premier Dirt series offer a pretty convincing take on the sticky brown stuff, MudRunners wants to drown you and your vehicle in it. MudRunners offers up the muddiest mud tracks I think I’ve ever come across.

Largely, besides any tasks flung your way, it’s your fuel and your level of damage that you need to be keeping an eye on. Some of the vehicles are fitted with differential lock, which makes your wheels spin evenly but gives you less control, while an all wheels option is better for tackling the tough stuff, but uses more fuel. There is a cockpit view which is generally more helpful, except that there aren’t any rear-view or side mirrors which could also be somewhat useful when driving a truck, or in fact almost anything. First up, there’s the camera, which allows you to look at your vehicle in a variety of ways, apart from the most obvious and useful ones like directly behind your vehicle. A brief tutorial sets the scene, though it doesn’t give the greatest first impression. So Spintires: MudRunner is a driving game – it’s definitely not a racing game – and on the whole you’ll be attempting to traverse various difficult terrains in first gear.

Have you ever wondered how difficult it is to reverse a flat bed truck with a fixed rear axle through a muddy track? According to Spintires: MudRunnner it’s really bloody hard, and frankly I’m willing to believe it.

It is probably amongst the most brutal games I’ve ever tried to review, yet there’s something here in its bleak, slow, Eastern European commercial truck-driving that’s kept me coming back for more. Spintires: MudRunner is not a game for the faint of heart.

Mudrunner