It’s certainly fun to fire up something like Forza Motorsport and attempt to set a new land speed record in one of the flashiest modern supercars on the market. Still, speed isn’t everything, and as Snowrunner has taught us, going slow can be its own kind of fun – especially when it means carefully navigating over terrain that would instantly kill the average Bugatti. There’s a new game called Icebound lining up to take a bite from the Snowrunner pie, and it’s throwing in a few new elements to keep things exciting.
Icebound puts you in the workboots of Henry Beauchamp, a wilderness rescue and firefighter stationed somewhere in the wilds of northern Quebec. Faced with a catastrophically unseasonable drop in temperature, he’s trying to ferry supplies to remote settlements in his trusty old Snowcat.
Unfortunately for Henry, he loses contact with the rest of his expedition and finds himself alone and isolated in an environment that would very much like to kill him. You’ll have to drive the Snowcat to safety, all the while avoiding the brutal cold, dangerous wildlife, and other more sinister forces that are closing in on him in this tense survival game.
The comparisons to Snowrunner are pretty obvious, but Icebound is less about the vehicles and more about the wilderness survival aspects of the situation. If you’ve played The Long Dark, you’ll have a good idea of what Icebound is going for: you have to explore, find your way, and keep yourself alive by scrounging for food, fuel, weapons, and clothing along the way.
Developer GameFormatic has made a bunch of garage-themed games in the past, including titles like Car Detailing Simulator and Offroad Mechanic Simulator (the studio also helped out with House Flipper’s Dine Out DLC), and some of that is present in Icebound, too. Your Snowcat might break down, forcing you to pop the hood, pull out a malfunctioning alternator, and find a place to make repairs to it before reinstalling.
While Icebound is mostly about carefully plotting your way around danger, there will inevitably come times when it catches up with you and you’ll have to stand and fight – just make sure that trusty axe stays sharpened.
You can find out more about Icebound on Steam, but be sure to check out our favorite PC simulator games, as well as our list of the best indie games for PC. You can expect Icebound to show up in 2025.
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