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Hands-on: “WRECKNADO”! New track, cars and tournament for Wreckfest

It’s time to get in your basement, take shelter and hide your kids. There’s a Wrecknado coming to Wreckfest and it’ll blow you away. Blasting in following the very snowy “Winter Fest” tournament, the Wrecknado theme is clearly weather themed again. The new cars are coming to you via the “Reckless Car Pack” which is…Continue reading “Hands-on: “WRECKNADO”! New track, cars and tournament for Wreckfest”»

It’s time to get in your basement, take shelter and hide your kids. There’s a Wrecknado coming to Wreckfest and it’ll blow you away. Blasting in following the very snowy “Winter Fest” tournament, the Wrecknado theme is clearly weather themed again.

The new cars are coming to you via the “Reckless Car Pack” which is included in Season Pass 2 but is also available to purchase separately should you wish. It costs a paltry $3.99/£3.29 on both Steam and the PlayStation Store.

As is normal with Wreckfest, track updates are included for everyone and you don’t need to own the DLC cars to race against someone. It is a nice way of ensuring that your audience doesn’t get split up by who owns what content.

Wrecknado Circuit and Demolition Derby Arena

Preparing for launch – the start is somewhat like getting ready to drop on your favourite rollercoaster

Starting off with the freebie…

The Wrecknado banger race track is very cool. Initially, you’re launched down a central “chute” and straight into the action. You’ve got choices of whether to go left or right but either way, you have to cross the DMZ in the middle of the track. According to developers Bugbear Entertainment, the “high banked loops feed hapless racers into a vortex of destruction in the middle”. Having given it a go, we can certainly agree that the middle of this track is a pit of death, destruction and crushed cars.

The demolition arena is reasonably small compared to others in the game. The banked loops don’t feature at all in the arena, it’s essentially a singular, circular pit. The small size makes it easy to find other cars to smash up but does mean you can’t always get to full speed, so we recommend choosing a short gear ratio.

Now onto the paid DLC part of this update…

Blade

The Blade – seen here in bright pink attire

The Blade looks, and sounds, suspiciously like a 1982 Chevrolet Camaro. The sleek looks of the car are backed up by its street-car handling.

The car is fast, particularly once receiving all of the upgrades. Although it’s not the strongest car in the game, you can put some reasonable armour on it and take just about enough punishment to be competitive in a banger race.

In many respects, the Blade is a similar car to the Razor, released in last September’s Getaway Car Pack. It handles well, looks cool, and is a fantastic all-rounder on track.

Gordie

Has owning an imitation LADA been a life-long dream of yours? If so, you’re in luck

Upon close inspection, the Gordie is an imitation of the Lada VAZ-2101 in rally trim.

It’s nimble and reminds us most of the Boomer RS. It’s a nice car to add to your collection and sounds fantastic.

Step-van

Personally, I prefer ice lollies

Ice cream anyone? The step-van brings the pinnacle of front-wheel-drive performance to Wreckfest. Well, maybe not, but it’s a very strong and beefy vehicle that can perform well in demolition races.

It does understeer quite a lot but can sustain some heavy damage, particularly on the front and rear – the sides are definitely its weak point. We’re getting distinct Twisted Metal vibes from this one.

Credit: THQ Nordic on YouTube

There are a number of other changes that came with the 1.92 update of Wreckfest. It is now live on PlayStation, Xbox and Steam. Feel free to read them on Bugbear Entertainment’s website or keep reading below:

Changelog / Release Notes for Wreckfest Update (v.1.92)

CONTENT

  • Added support for the new DLC pack “Reckless Car Pack” containing three new cars: Blade, Gorbie and Stepvan.
  • Added two new tracks: Wrecknado Racing Track and Wrecknado Demolition Arena.
    Server admins note: the internal designations for the routes are urban09_1 (Racing Track) and urban09_2 (Demolition Arena).

TOURNAMENT

  • New tournament season: Wrecknado.
  • New taxi cab themed reward bundle “Taxi Wrecker” for Rammer RS.
  • New drag racing themed reward bundle “Drag 55” for Bulldog.

SYSTEM

  • (XB1) Leaderboard updates are now more reliable.
  • (XB1) [ROLLING OUT SOON] Leaderboards are displayed for all tracks.

MULTIPLAYER

  • [XB1/PS4]Added a Team Racing & Derby Mixed server. Be sure to let us know if you like it!
  • Player no longer gets kicked mid-event when they start holding down throttle before the event starts.
  • (Dedicated Server) Increased admin_steam_ids and op_steam_ids maximum parameter size to 1024 characters.

GAMEPLAY

  • Improved Rocket RX handling.
  • Improved Sofa Car handling.
  • Added the Rocket stock exhaust as an option for Rocket RX.
  • A number of small special vehicles no longer receive unexpected amounts of damage.
  • Improved Bumper Car performance to make it a Class C vehicle like its peers.
  • Upgrade parts now correctly follow the deformed shape of the vehicle.
  • Fixed Starbeast SS reversing light glitch.
  • Raven steel mesh is now correcly visible in all LOD levels.
  • Fixed inconsistent Hornet bumper weights.
  • Fixed inconsistent Killerbee S bumper weights.

AUDIO

  • Boomer/Boomer RS: Increased RPM safety limit to prevent sounds from cutting of at engine redline in some cases.
  • Razor: Adjusted camera-view based audio filtering settings of turbocharger whine to include less high frequency content over mid-to-high engine rpm range.

Have you been enjoying Wreckfest? Which is the new vehicles is your favourite? Let us know in the comments!