I'm giving this game a political thumbs up and will proceed to kindly screw the game as it currently deserves. I hope 3Fields Entertainment survives in some capacity, but there's nothing to be gained from pretending this wasn't going to happen.

Wreckreation dev "forced" to put staff at risk of redundancy because publisher Embracer offers no "enthusiasm or financial support"

Well, this whole situation is already bad enough to make me run a good cop - bad cop scenario. This game is completely wacko, so why wouldn't my review be?

Good Cop: ♥♥♥♥ Embracer.
Bad Cop: I agree.

Good Cop: But the game has so much potential.
Bad Cop: So does every game, including plenty from studios with much better track records. And, so did every game, including the studios which gone extinct.

Good Cop: But it's simply cruel to fund an indie studio and leave them to dry.
Bad Cop: While correct, as one might say, once is a happenstance (Danger Zone), twice is a coincidence (Dangerous Driving), and thrice is a pattern (Wreckreation).

It may sound cruel, but... I'm all for blaming Embracer all day, that's easy. What's hard is conveying the message that this game is actually worthwhile. If only all those people who tweeted about how bad the news was had actually bought and played the game... They would have funded it, but now the studio needs 65k per month, which is simply unsustainable.

People are aware of the dire situation 3Fields is facing, but they still don't engage with the game. The game's content doesn't travel word of mouth. I can only do my part, giving it a shot.

To put it simply, I know my 3Fields stuff well enough. They are a low-rank studio, and you could easily tell Dangerous Driving was a low-budget product. It's fine. I guess that "feel," that limited scope, somehow made me like Dangerous Driving more than Wreckreation which was supposed to be a sequel in the first place. It was their ambition to turn this into a whole ''sandbox'' adventure.

Speaking of which, it's not a lie that Wreckreation's sandbox has a ton of potential. Burnout this, Burnout that. ♥♥♥♥ that, man. There isn't a single outlet that can avoid mentioning Burnout. It's an inescapable black hole. Before positioning itself as a successor to Burnout, it must first repurpose itself into a genuinely fun racing game.

Look, it's perfectly fine to align your vision with a game series —much more understandable when the studio's founders worked on that project— but you must be doing something wrong if you seemingly cannot escape the shadow of a former series. Perhaps Burnout died so other arcade racers could live. And to strive toward that goal, you only have to innovate. I'm afraid to say that Wreckreation, despite every tool at its disposal, is nowhere near competing with Burnout, and it also can't compete with Bugbear's Wreckfest —which is now seven years old, and there are people still think Wreckreation is sort of a spin-off to that.

The wildest thing (besides the fact I just played TDU2 this year, thought it had the most insane, bizarre physics of all, and Wreckreation somehow topped it) is that Wreckreation is an amalgamation of many things, including (lmao) Burnout, FlatOut, NFS, and even Blur.

The handling is essentially what makes a racer fun. When it comes to a high-octane, "all gas, no brakes" type of destruction/collision-based game, you need to be engaging right out of the gate. You just gotta. And I've got to say that most of the reviews are bullshitting. You won't spend most of your time in the open world (unless you're really thirsty for a collectathon racer) because it's pointless. The map is quite big and never reaches the heights of being an engaging sandbox.

Yes, you can "place" stuff, but I can't see how you're incentivized to. The game seems to be big (or at least it was) on multiplayer and sandbox aspects, but they're oversold. I spent most of my time grinding road races and road rages (which involve knocking out opponent cars). They are ubiquitous and are a collectathon in themselves.

I can only bet one of the reasons the collision is this bad lies in the fact that the game doesn't really have any complexity or an actual learning curve, so the only punishment comes from a limited number of tries in Road Rage and losing time or crashing (thus restarting) in Road Race when you slightly bump into a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rock. I've seen people complain about both modes, but it's fairly easy to keep up with Road Rage (you'll rarely run out of time), and winning (as in placing 1st) in road races is again fairly easy but for some reason, gold medals are rather hard to earn. That usually comes from the fact that you constantly need to boost and collide with other cars, which on paper confirms the game's motto: "Drive dangerously and aggressively." But at the same time, this is not a game that rewards shortcuts or cutting corners; you kinda need to follow the lane, wreck through checkpoints (to earn further boost), and actually drive somewhat clean. I just don't get the point. It's nothing like Burnout, as a matter of fact. Bumping into opponents may also boost them (with an incredibly wacky animation) which would have been quite undesired.

The traffic has weird behaviors and occasionally gets locked in the open world (my heart was not ready for another gridlock after MindsEye). Events are spaced out, and while there are Parks that allow you to fast-travel, you might miss them if you run from one event to another (which is essentially how you unfog the map, and yes, the map is fogged, which is fine). You need to drive to an event —even if you've completed it previously— to start it, and you cannot fast-travel to previously unlocked events. That's a massive oversight. The map is actually somewhat hard to read and has the same color palette everywhere, no matter the terrain or landscape.

It's also annoying that when a race ends (despite there being no given input to do so) and you don't restart within a short period, it'll automatically kick you back to the open world. I had to learn about it the hard way when I was relaxing my fingers after busting my ass pressing turbo the whole race.

I feel controllers haven't been adequately filtered, and collision is inconsistent between races and the open-world free roam. The UI is more like a template (and luckily, that's gonna change), and there's simply no virtue in adding hundreds of the "same" races when there could have been more GTAV Playlist/Trackmania-type tracks (they're the best part of the game cuz, hey, you don't engage with traffic, and it's really high-octane with stunts!), stunt races, and an actual crash mode. Not only would they add more identity, flair, and diversity but the current races wouldn't have been as overtuned.

With all that said, it's also great to see a Tight Rope mode in the works and on the roadmap. That kind of stuff is what Wreckreation desperately needs —not more cars (people don't even recognize that there are showdowns that unlock cars in a fashion similar to Burnout) or crossplay for a game that is simply not being played.

I hate how a vignette plays every time you take down somebody, and you must watch it for the 1000th time. It's also in real-time, so it may lead you to make a mistake. It kills the entire flow of the game.

Furthermore, I must highlight that the competition is as stiff as the game's handling. Yes, 2025 has been rough for racers, and 3Fields added insult to injury, but there are still plenty of old games, including Onrush, that added an actual twist. There's Wreckfest 2, an actual Early Access game with plenty of room to grow. It's just how it is.

I am well aware 3Fields is a studio of less than a dozen people, but your game needs to ooze charisma, that's the only way to strike through people's hearts as an indie. Good luck!..

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Please take a moment to check out my curator for more in-depth reviews

Sonic racers have generally been fun, even if they sometimes lack depth. To be fair, SEGA has some wild cards up its sleeve, despite its often atrocious marketing decisions. Here, I believe the game stays humble, offering free content rotations and reasonably priced season pass/individual DLC. The gap between content drops and DLC releases feels just right.

I don't usually prefer games with character stats, but similar to Mario Kart (which is impossible to not compare to), weaker characters are still capable of winning. Ultimately, your vehicle and build matter most. It's a really fun racer. It has the chaotic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ power-ups (which lead to strategies like "bagging") that every kart game in existence features. I haven't played enough to be a constant in Legendary lobbies, and I've mostly stuck to multiplayer. Looking at the builds of players I encounter and the global leaderboards, the meta is rather clear: people usually use Boost-type vehicles and "snake" a lot with drifting gears. It's not a style I particularly enjoy (and can get done), but it is what it is, every game develops its meta. Players always data-mine (there's already a probabilistic table for item distribution lmao) and optimize. This will likely change with future tweaks and content.

There are plenty of useful gears that enable different strategies. You can build to collide with others and steal rings (which is maintaining your speed), perform air tricks for rings (that is already incredibly fun on its own), or go on the offensive /w Omega by drifting near opponents to spin and knock them out.

The maps are vibrant and fun, featuring neat shortcuts. The changing-worlds mechanic is a sound addition that makes each race feel more unpredictable. The game runs smoothly, has great customization options, and the guest characters (Miku, Ichiban, Joker, SpongeBob & Patrick, and the Minecraft crew) have been neat additions.

One thing I can't quite figure out is the common criticism toward Acceleration-type vehicles. I'm not confident with them either, but they seem to be effective for frontrunning? The problem, as far as I can read the room, is that taking a hit is almost inevitable, so you need to leverage vehicle kits and quick recovery to get back on track. Without those gears, I'm unsure if they have another strength that other types don't, which might make them feel like a liability.

Regardless, one thing I sincerely like about this game —and think is well done— is that you can use any build universally on any vehicle and get good results (they may not constantly win you races but you can still be in top 4, top 5 and grind your way up). In that regard, you could even apply a Power vehicle build to an Acceleration type and see how it performs. It has a high degree of freedom for sure but as far as min-maxing goes maybe there can be more fine tuning to each vehicle.

I too usually choose Boost (or Speed when I feel my build needs more protection). Boost vehicles are like one trick ponies. If you get unlucky (or do a deadly mistake) it's really hard to recover from and you can instantly go 12th but I lowkey like that adrenaline rush as well as being on the edge constantly. I feel they are much easier to drift with (even moreso than handling type).

Leaving all this behind though, the ultimate charge at its current state is quite hard to deal with (and it's the only strategy that you can safely use to win other than... bagging I guess, even than you might need to get quite lucky). I think you can still compensate with slipstreams, even air tricks, but it seems like they are a pain to deal with when you get hit. The people who use ultimate charge are the people who mostly go offensive (unless they are already frontrunning) as they don't need to rely much on defensive items (and probably don't need a gear/kit either). It's interesting because I think overcompensates the faults more than anything in the game so I would be interested to see if it gets nerfed or completely banned in higher lobies.

There is a notable lack of Boost characters overall (currently only Miku, though another is coming soon). With such a crowded roster, it's puzzling why someone like Jet isn't a Boost character.

I'm unsure if Crossworlds can top MK8 for me personally, as I'm deeply familiar with that game. However, I think Sonic Racing Crossroads has an upper hand over Mario Kart in its world-building and mechanical depth. But it must be noted that the longevity is where MK excels at and it remains to be seen if CrossWorlds can be with us for a long while (I would hope so!) as Sonic racers rather do well at singleplayer content and people then drop it off.

While I find it fairly balanced and engaging enough to keep coming back when you frustratingly hit that quit button, Sonic Racing needs better on-track indicators and more protective utilities. This is part of the deal when you get targeted by players holding onto items. As counterintuitive as it sounds, being in the lead (if you can't build a gap) comes with a hefty cost. This aspect needs better balancing, as ever, and I believe it can be massively improved even if it's never perfected.

In its current state, CrossWorlds can't be missed even if you are likely to throw a few temper tantrums here and there.

[Go get that Best Sports/Racing, champ]

★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆

Please take a moment to check out my curator for more in-depth reviews