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Heading Out is a driving game not about finishing first or delivering freight. Instead, you’re on a road trip across America’s highways in which your collisions, detours, and police chases shape your story and the characters you meet along the road. It’s out now.
Your journey is split into discrete chunks, with the next leg of your journey chosen via a map based on length, fuel usage, and potential encounters on the road. Your car condition and police wanted level can apparently impact your options, and the Steam page promises a feedback loop between your decisions and your performance on the drive. There’s also a bunch of radio stations, with hosts who will comment on your escapades via news reports.
As if making a branching, narrative driving game weren’t enough, Heading Out also has a striking art style, with mostly black-and-white artwork, occasional yellow and red colour pops – including a sometimes blood-red sky – and comic book art during story vignettes. I feel like it’s taking about four different big swings at the same time, but I’m very much onboard.
Heading Out is the work of Serious Sim, the developers of Radio Commander, a strategy game with a similarly heavy dose of narrative in which you received situation reports and gave orders only via radio. Our Radio Commander review found it “one of the most annoying wargames”, but “also one of the most interesting and involving.” Well, that can happen when you take big swings.
Heading Out is available now from Steam for £14.84/€18/$18.