Trailmakers 2.0 Update Revitalizes the Game, and Plays Great on Steam Deck

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When you think of Trailmakers, you might just think of a sandbox where you make your own vehicular creations and drive them around a fairly basic map. That's at least how I imagined the game, but I also hadn't played the game since I bought it back in 2019, 6 years later, it was time to dive in and see what exactly had changed in all that time, and a lot has changed!

Not only have there been multiple major updates, improving things like physics, adding new maps, new blocks, and even new game modes, but the "Pioneers" update adds a whole new campaign to the game, for free, with missions/quests and a massive open world map to explore with your creations.

Trailmakers 2.0 - Gameplay Impressions

Instead of just a creation sandbox, Trailmakers 2.0 places us in a massive open world, and after a brief tutorial that teaches you the basics of building and what certain gadgets do, such as mining beams, engines, and wheels, you're put in an open world where you're pretty much free to explore and take on quests as you please. This "campaign" doesn't have much of a story, so to speak, but there is dialogue, and you do "progress".

The "leveling up" system in place acts as the game's progression system, gradually unlocking more advanced blocks to use, as well as giving the player more "power cores" to take advantage of, meaning their creations can contain more gadgets and weaponry. It's a pretty neat system and means that you have to work within certain confines, which I always prefer to just being able to make whatever I want in a sandbox.

The level-up system isn't just for your character either, you'll also encounter friendly villages/bases that offer you quests, and completing quests for that village will grant it experiences and allow it to level up and expand, which can be pretty satisfying.

Combat hasn't changed too much, you're fighting against the BOTNAKS, which we've seen in prior Trailmakers updates, although they do have a few more build variations up their sleeve. The game remains fairly easy, and provided you've got a decent build going, you shouldn't struggle with dispatching your foes.

As for the world itself, it is a tad on the empty side, it doesn't look too bad if you up your graphics settings, but on low settings where foliage is reduced, you do spend a lot of time driving over grass plains that are just a flat texture with some slight elevation variation. Landmarks are few and far between, and it would have been nice to have perhaps some more detail/variation in the environment.

Ultimately, Trailmakers 2.0 is a good time to dive into the game, the new campaign breathes new life into the game, giving you reasons to build machines, while placing restrictions to prevent overkill/over-engineered designs. The whole thing is also playable in multiplayer co-op, which is sure to be a blast as you see what designs other people come up with.

Trailmakers - Steam Deck Performance Tested

Trailmakers supports controllers pretty well, the UI can be a little tough to navigate, but it is doable and fine once you get used to the game's layout.

The game also offers huge variations in graphical settings, allowing you to fine-tune the settings. For a 60 FPS experience, I'd recommend going for the "Fast & Ugly" preset, and then upping the Texture Quality to "Full Texture Size", this seems to mostly hold 60 FPS, although, on rare occasions, it did drop into the mid-50s. The power draw for this one is about You can check out the 60 FPS settings I used below:

If you want to up the quality and play with 40 FPS instead, you should go with the "Middle Road" preset and then tone down a couple of settings. Again, these settings can drop to 30 FPS for brief periods, usually when traversing long distances, but it'll pick up to 40 FPS again once it's loaded up. The power draw was around 15-19W. I've put the settings I used in the image below:

Final Thoughts

Trailmakers 2.0 is a great time to dive into the game, the new campaign and progression system feel nice and balanced. I do wish that we had a bit more enemy variety, although there are quite a few variations, and perhaps a bit more detail in the massive open-world map too, but considering it's a free update, it's well worth checking out. Plus, the game runs quite well on the Steam Deck.

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