Expeditions: A Mudrunner Game review: the dirt’s as good as ever, but the science is a bit too clean

Scree-ing holiday

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Focus Entertainment

• Developer: Saber Interactives
• Publisher: Focus Entertainment
• Release: 5th March 2024
• On: Windows
• From: Steam , Epic Games Store
• Price: £35/€40/$40
• Reviewed on: AMD Ryzen 5 3600, 32 GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 2080 Super, Windows 10

As someone who finds games about cars wot go fast only intermittently interesting, I’d expect a game about cars wot go slow to be positively soporific. Speed is, ultimately, the modus operandi of a car. It gets you where you need to go faster than a horse, and doesn’t do annoying things like pooing on your patio or dying (also, potentially, on your patio). Surely, then, playing a game about cars moving at the speed of a dead patio horse defeats the point, like playing a first-person shooter where all the guns fire backwards.

Expeditions: A Mudrunner Game demonstrates this not to be the case. This bouncy, slimy off-roading simulator is the most fun I’ve had with an imaginary car since 2018’s Jalopy . This is partly because it is as much a physics puzzler filled with limitless conundrums as it is a game about driving, but also because, like Jalopy, it envisions the car as something more than a way to boost egos by doing a big circle.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Focus Interactive

As clumsily explained by its title, Expeditions: A Mudrunner Game is the latest in the Mudrunner/Snowrunner series of driving games, which were originally about driving extremely large trucks through even larger bogs. While I’ve always been curious about this series, I haven’t had the opportunity to sample its eclectic delights until now. Nonetheless, I understand the fundamentals enough to know Expeditions represents a slight sidestep from 2021’s Snowrunner, moving it away from hauling freight across an integrated open world, and making it a more session-based affair themed around scientific endeavour.

The basic premise sees you running a sort-of exploration/logistics company tasked with fulfilling science-based contracts in two large environments, namely Arizona and the Carpathian Mountains. Each contract (or ’expedition’) has you deploy into one of these environments with a vehicle of your choosing and involves travelling to one or several locations to complete set objectives. You might, for example, have to set up some scientific equipment to measure pollution levels in a Carpathian swamp, or escort a free-range boffin to some ancient stone formation deep in the desert, so they can take photos and interpret their function.

I’ll circle back to the game’s theme and structure later. For now, let’s say it mostly serves to get your vehicles into places they should not normally be. Half-submerged in water, for example, or scrambling up a scree slope littered with the kind of boulders that fearsome cavewomen would crack over the heads of their lousy, good-for-nothing husbands.

In its moment-to-moment, Expeditions is rather wonderful. Although each vehicle handles differently, they broadly function in the same way. Basic driving is as straightforward as in modern Grand Theft Auto , with your only extra concern being a handbrake you need to turn on and off. When terrain get rough and/or wet beneath the wheels, however, Expeditions becomes a little more complicated, with a variety of vehicle functions and techniques to help you bypass the environment’s many obstacles. Setting your vehicle to four-wheel drive, for example, will help you power up slopes and get over basic rough terrain. If things get especially lumpy or muddy, you may need to haul your car along with a winch, or deliberately deflate your tyres to increase their surface grip.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Focus Interactive

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Focus Interactive

It’s surprising how quickly these driving techniques become intuitive. While Expeditions can be a challenging game, you can get around the maps easily enough just by being sensible. Always look for the smoothest route, even if it’s more circuitous. If you come to a large body of water, use your sonar to detect where it is shallowest. There’s also a fundamental sponginess to the environmental puzzling that allows you to feel out the right way up a slope or down a rocky ditch. You know when your vehicle is likely to tip over or begin to slide back down a hill, so you can adjust your approach accordingly.

That same sponginess is also what makes Expeditions so physically satisfying. The way your vehicle rattles along wind-sculpted rock and gouges its way through bubbly peat lights up the same part of my brain that goes ungh when I turn an imp into giblets with a shotgun in Doom. Its tactile simulation of tyres on terrain is one of gaming’s little miracles. And it isn’t just the big squelchy mud ponds that are impressive, the game applies that granularity to a wide variety of surfaces, and the contrasting environments help emphasise this. There’s a clear difference between the gritty dirt of Arizona compared to the soft undergrowth of the Carpathians. Combined with how uniquely rugged each square inch of terrain is, it makes basic driving enormously gratifying.

The challenge of Expeditions emerges from balancing these short-term obstacles against your longer-term goals. Although it may be tempting to scoot around with four-wheel drive always on and tyres slacker than your comfiest pair of underpants, doing so dramatically increases the amount of fuel you use. You can bring extra fuel with you (with larger vehicles allowing more storage space) but doing so will eat into the profits of your expedition. This isn’t the only decision you’ll need to make either. You’ll fret over how many spare parts to bring, which repair your car or help open new pathways by building bridges or clearing landslides. You can also hire specialists that give you expedition bonuses, making it easier to drive through water, for example.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Focus Interactive

This combination of intuitive physics puzzling and resource management results in a very satisfying off-roading experience. I’m less convinced by the theme and structure. The research angle is a nice idea, but in practice it can be a bit dry. Expeditions are at their best when you have to drive some giant, unwieldy science machine up a big hill for experimental purposes, or even better, tow another vehicle or piece of equipment to that location. Towing stuff in Expeditions is preposterously fun, and I’d take any excuse to connect one truck to another and go bouncing around the mountains together.

That said, many of the expeditions involve driving to a location to perform an underwhelming minigame, like taking photos or visiting rundown fire towers or scanning ponds for fish. Worst of all are the “explore the area” objectives, which essentially ask you to paint an area of the map using your car and binoculars. These are always a faff to complete, as the game measures the completion rate by percentage, so there’s always that last three percent of the area that takes ages to pin down.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Focus Interactive

As for structure, while Expeditions’ world isn’t unified, its maps are large, openly explorable and persistent. If you put a structure down in the world, it stays there forever, and you’ll eventually unlock the ability to ‘free roam’ in these spaces, letting you take on side quests for extra money, and discover points of interest at your own pace. The two environments are equally enjoyable to explore, with each biome generating unique challenges. Arizona is sparse and rugged, so it’s wise to brings lots of jacks and anchor points so you can revert your vehicle if it gets flipped, and use the winch when there are no trees around. The Carpathians, by comparison, has so many trees that winch points are abundant, but those trees are also often your main obstacle to progress, with knotty thickets often hindering your progress and obscuring dangerous hazards.

Nonetheless, I find the constant dipping in and out of the world to be quite dissociating. There are shades of Death Stranding to Expeditions’ combination of delivery runs and slow conquest of rough terrain, but leaving the world after every expedition spoils the immersion. It doesn’t help that the game’s menus are harder to navigate than its own wilderness. Setting up your vehicle for an expedition is far fiddlier than it should be, and even something as simple as deploying to the game world is fraught with pitfalls. The game is particularly bad at displaying where objectives are at the outset, which is a problem when you can potentially deploy tens of kilometres away from it. The basic objective marker is greyed out on the deployment map for some inexplicable reason, and if a mission starts with an ’explore the area’ objective, good luck finding out which area you’re supposed to explore!

These ruts in the road prevent Saber Interactive from delivering a soil-cold classic, but Expeditions: Mudrunner nonetheless succeeds in its primary objective, to build a world where the car and the ground are at irrepressible odds, and it’s your job to make them work together to crack the case. That case might prove to be mundane fly tipping rather than anything juicier, but watching our dynamic duo constantly wrestle with one another for supremacy never ceases to be entertaining.

This review is based on a review build of the game, provided by publishers Focus Interactive.

Find out how we conduct our reviews by reading our review policy .

Expeditions: A MudRunner Game

PS4 , PS5 , Xbox One , Xbox Series X/S , PC , Nintendo Switch

Rock Paper Shotgun is better when you sign in

Sign in and join us on our journey to discover strange and compelling PC games.

All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

Rock Paper Shotgun is better when you sign in

Sign in and join us on our journey to discover strange and compelling PC games.