I can take or leave the majority of Death Stranding’s story (BB forever, though), but I have to give it to Kojima: delivering things is fun. There’s a real complexity to the process of deciding what to package and how to package it, which makes simply delivering something like pizza legitimately difficult. So I’m quite tickled by the look of Pinetrail, a much less apocalyptic delivery game in which you drive a small three-wheeled rickshaw truck carrying packages through lush forests and mountains.
Pinetrail is obviously much more sober and calm than Death Stranding. There are no weird, invisible creatures to attack you (just little weird, visible creatures, I’ll talk about that), and you don’t have to sabotage them everywhere. While in Kojima’s case you usually place all your packages on your back, here you place them in the back of your truck, tying them semi-securely with rope. You can stack your deliveries pretty much however you like, and I’m sure the anals among you will have a field day.
However, the landscape remains difficult to navigate. There are no paved roads, only steep hills, and rocks can also fall on you, not to mention hordes of package-stealing wild boars (the aforementioned strange visible creatures). You need to be careful not to bump too much, as too much tension on your rope can cause your packages to fly.
Oh, speaking of flying, you can do that too! Literally, your truck has the ability to spread its wings and soar across the landscape. It may be silly, but certainly useful. Your truck also has other cool features, like a grappling hook that you can attach to trees to pull you up some of those steeper trails, and a boat mode that lets you navigate up streams. It looks like the kit is pretty advanced in this game!
It also seems that you earn money from making deliveries and you have to make a certain amount of it, although I can’t say how much money and completing your goals earns you. But the game looks pretty nice! There’s no exact release date yet, only a release window for Q2 2027, but you can add it to your wishlist on Steam waiting for.
