Spintires: Chernobyl Is A Super Serious Dark DLC For A Game About Muddy Trucks
There’s a whole sea of hyper-realistic simulator games out there that are unfathomably popular in Europe. Specifically Germany. Apparently, the country is populated entirely by mild-mannered dads with endless disposable income. Outside of the bizarrely passionate hardcore fanbase, there are only two ways these games will wind up on normal human radars. The first is when someone puts together a list of the most expensive games and realizes that EA ain’t got shit on obscure simulator devs. The complete Train Simulator 2020 DLC package will run you $9,829.45, plus the $29.99 for the base game. This is common. I just now randomly looked up Euro Truck Simulator 2. It’s a 2012 game with $192.34 of DLC, which is on the extreme low end. It’s also currently being streamed by 3 mild-mannered Germans.
The second occurrence that might land one of these games on your radar is when they come out with an extremely out of place horror DLC pack. A DLC pack where the only proper response is, “…what?” The most infamous of these is probably Trains Vs Zombies, a timed Halloween pack for the otherwise dry Train Simulator 2012. You can’t actually get those DLCs anymore, which is depressing. These DLC packs are usually comedic. You take a dry boring game for dads, add zombies, and the comedy writes itself.
Which is why it’s baffling that the new DLC for Spintires seems to be completely serious. Titled Spintires: Chernobyl, the DLC tasks you with harvesting logs in the abandoned nuclear wasteland. I’m… not sure why, but here’s the description from the Official Press Release:
November 15th, Oovee® Games is pleased to announce an ultimate eerie expansion for Spintires®, which puts you in the hot seat of a Chernobyl logger furnished with brand-new vehicles, the B-157 and B-505. Equipped with a Geiger-counter, avoid the highly radiated areas and locate the logging sites without sustaining too much damage to your vehicle.
Explore the eerie and painstakingly detailed Spintires® representation of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Pripyat, Red Forest, Kupsta Lake and the Duga Radar. Tackle the Chernobyl exclusive Steam Achievements and try to pinpoint the infamous “Claw of Chernobyl”.
Spintires®: Chernobyl is going to be available for PC on Steam and other digital distribution platforms on December 13th.
To me, it seems weird that a game about muddy logging trucks would go in a dark and gritty direction. I get that every Russian game by law must take place in Chernobyl, but people usually play these simulators to chill out and turn their brains off. Reminding them of the devastation caused by mankind’s greed seems like kind of a downer. But hey, what the fuck do I know. As I said, I’m not the target audience. From the Steam reviews section, it seems like fans are happy the series is going in this direction. Apparently there was some kind of drama and the developers split off? Now there are two games? This is a rabbit hole I don’t care to jump down. If you’re interested/invested in the series, let me know below if Spintires: Chernobyl is the true future for muddy truck games.
