Have you ever hoped you could get back to the glorious days of Demolition Derby and FlatOut, climb behind the wheel of your banged-up ride and once again wreck your way to the finish line and show who’s the boss? You’re not the only one. Over the years, we’ve been asked thousands of times when are we going to get back to our roots and make another racing game that would capture the same spirit of over-the-top action and reckless racing.

Wreckfest is going to bring those unforgettable moments up-to-date, throw in the mix vehicle upgrading and spice it all up with massive online races where players can battle it out with their tricked out bangers.

Bugbear's Wreckfest is all about fun, breakneck racing and over-the-top crashes. We don’t shy away from contact, and indeed, our in-house engine is all about what happens when cars collide with each other and the world around them at reckless speeds.

It’s motorsport, but not just any motorsport. It’s motorsport with attitude.

Expect epic crashes and tight, neck-to-neck fights over the finish line on run-down racing tracks. Expect proper, big demolition derbies. Expect brand new ways for metal to bend and the defining once-in-the-lifetime moments that can be achieved only with true-to-life physics simulation.

As Wreckfest is all about the madness of colliding cars at breakneck speeds, a term describing the glory of tearing metal is nothing if not apt.

The name reveal is certainly not all, for Wreckfest has also evolved to include 18 player multiplayer! The players can now challenge their friends to share the most visceral demolition racing mayhem in existence! With four different game modes, Racing, Demolition Derby, and the new Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, Wreckfest’s conjunction of purity of driving and the innate beauty of twisted metal creates massive amounts of emergent glee when punishing your friends and foes alike.

We’re pushing the limits to get the number of simultaneous players to 24, but optimizing the network code will take a bit longer. Because the code is not yet optimized, remember that the speed of your ISP has a tremendous impact on how the races will run. Check the Recommended Upstream figure when you host a game, and you’ll be fine.

If you’re experiencing difficulties when joining or hosting a game, you may need to adjust your network port forwarding: 27015 UDP and TCP for Steam, and our game uses 33540 UDP. If problems persist, check our community forum’s thread about the subject.

Speaking of different play modes, Wreckfest has been content in letting players enjoy racing and demolition derby at their basic forms. We thought we’d spice the regular derby up with Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, in which you’re not limited to a single car like in the classic Demolition Derby game mode. In short, if you get ganked, you can rejoin the fray with a brand new banger, and keep on truckin’! You may grin while you do so, it is entirely permitted.

As for racing goes, we’re adding Speedway, a new oval track, to the mix, where you can showcase both your driving skills and your ability to dish out some severe punishment. Speedway is actually a twofer – inside the oval ring is a figure 8 track! In short, you’ll be getting two tracks instead of one, and both are a delight to play.

We’re also adding a new car to the arsenal: a European coupe is making its first appearance in Build #6. A whopping amount of horsepower packed into a light frame, it might be challenging to handle, but those who master its raw power and surprising agility are always a force to be reckoned with.

While all of the aforementioned are noteworthy things on their own, our in-house engine ROMU supplies the physics and detailed damage modeling to ensure that the crashes both look and feel glorious. The improved suspension physics we’ve been working on for the past month give collisions that extra mile of oomph – but we’re not satisfied yet. This is a good beginning, but it’s by no means all she wrote.

In addition to these four major features, we’re introducing a lot of smaller items, like these:

- The Field of Vision can now be altered, letting you find the combination of visibility and sense of speed you enjoy the most. (Check this video to see how FoV affects your sense of surroundings and speed.)
- Reversing now turns the camera so you can see where you’re backing to, which is especially useful in derby matches, where reversing into someone is an effective way to deal some damage without crippling your own car in the process.
- Car upgrades now work on online modes as well
- You can specifically search for servers where your Steam friends are playing

A full update list can be found on our forums, so if you’re interested, please click here and keep reading.

As always, remember that Wreckfest is a work in progress. Although the prevalent bugs are a part of all Early Access games, rest assured that we’re making it better, every day. Players can submit their ideas on our own community forums, and help us make Wreckfest, already an amazing demolition racing, be all it can be.

All right, that’s it for now. Enjoy the offerings, and have a blast!

Yours,

Jori Virtanen, game designer, Bugbear Entertainment