Back when this was announced, it seemed like Wreckreation would just be a creation sandbox. Which I felt would be a fun time regardless. However, as more things were revealed about it, it seemed Three Fields Entertainment were trying for a spiritual successor to Burnout alongside the creative options. The question is, how well does it do that? There’s fun to be had here, I can say that.

Immediately I’m into a sky race. A race which uses the tools on offer to create a track in the sky that can feature jumps, large slopes, and even loops. This first race gave me a chance to feel the mechanics of the driving. Which feel very arcade-like. High speed corners and brakes that barely need to be used. It really does have that classic arcade feel. Though there is a danger of turning in too hard, spinning out, and coming to an almost complete stop. Along with a few other handling mishaps.

Much like Burnout, there’s a flaming boost bar which can be used at any time. Any form of dangerous driving will fill it up, such as crashing through objects or drifting. Takedowns on other racers will add a new segment onto it, providing more boost to use. But getting taken out will drop a segment and lose all the boost in the bar. With how fast-paced the action is, I found myself taking myself out quite a few times in later races. Not helped by a distracting motion blur.

The end of the sky race drops me into a small stunt park, where another event type sees me banking points for dangerous driving in a time limit. It was an easy time, utilising drifts along with jumps. And using the handbrake for some very tight turning. And when I say tight, I really mean it. At the cost of all speed, I was pretty much able to do 90-degree turns on the spot. And even beyond that, with times where I faced a full 180-degrees.

With that done, I felt it time to fully explore the world of Wreckreation. A world which the map screen obscures until I discover it via driving. The roads of this world feel very classic Burnout, with many straights on wide roads combined with quarter and half corners that have run offs and slight banking to help keep the speed around them. Whether drifting through them or not. Many of the roads are tarmac, with a number of dirt roads around, too.

As I drove around, I was discovering new events. Along with parking areas, gas stations, gates, and billboards. The billboards and gates are here to smash through, while both gas stations and parking areas hold all unlocked cars that can be swapped to. Gas stations also have the added benefit of repairing the car and refilling the boost bar. Which is a great bonus in road rages, as doing so also restores the number of crashes I can take until the event ends.

Speaking of the road rages, these are as fun as they have ever been. Takedown opponents before the timer runs out or I can no longer continue driving. Being an open world game, the opponents will always spawn on the roads I’m on, though can choose their own direction to take the battle. Which is how one particular event took to the rails for some high-speed chases. Such can feel endless at times, with me barely catching up despite using all my boost.

There’s a lot of events to race on, but Wreckreation has made a big deal about its creative suite. It’s a good system once you understand it, but it very much could do with improvement. For instance, once a piece has snapped onto another, the only way to unsnap it is to deselect the piece in the menu. There’s also the fact that most of what can be played around with in live mix needs unlocking via finding the tokens scattered across the world. Though it does get me utilising the sky tracks to collect them.

Once I’ve placed all the sky track pieces I want to utilise for my race, the checkpoints need placing down. The game expects me to place the start and finish first, then populate the track with checkpoints. It goes against the logic of every other track creator I’ve used, so at first, I was confused on why it kept saying a route between the start and finish could not be found. Should really have looked at the event creation tabs, accessed via the map and pressing to view stats.

Normal races using the roads of the world can be created too, with this being much simpler. As it utilises the map for placement of the checkpoints. And uses regular track creation logic. Rules can be set, such as restricting which type of car can be used. For now, I’m only able to create standard point-to-point races. But the creation tabs do mention other events I can create, so I assume I’ll unlock those at some point.

There are a few other issues I have to note for the overall experience. For a start, no options menu whatsoever. Meaning the motion blur that feels invasive when things get fast cannot be turned off. The camera while driving also doesn’t seem to know what to do when objects are close by it. Many a time I’ve been off road, passing a few trees or a rock wall, and find myself looking at the inside of my car.

The world also feels very similar. Despite there being four counties here, each has no defining traits. And aside from a few interesting locations scattered around (hello dinosaur park), there’s nothing here that makes me want to explore outside of finding collectibles and events. And nitpick it might be, but what is wrong with that water? From afar it looks fine, but get close, and a mess of polygons is what it becomes.

Wreckreation is the closest we’ll likely ever get to a Burnout-styled experience for many years. The driving is fun, even with a few handling issues, with many events to be enjoying. That can sometimes feel unfair. The creation tools are great, though can be a bit clunky. And that very much is Wreckreation as a whole. For every good part about it, there’s something bad attached to that part.

It feels a great sandbox to mess around in, particularly with the DJ menu allowing the changing of time, weather, car customisation, traffic density and more on the fly while roaming around. But even those aren’t enough to gain my highest recommendation. Wreckreation is at best one I would maybe recommend. It’s a nice spiritual successor to Burnout. It’s a nice creation sandbox. But there’s an emptiness to both that feels as wide as its roads.

Images Taken From:
Wreckreation | Xbox Series S