Preview: Warhammer 40K: Speed Freeks Is a Brief, Loud, Blast

Boomdakka Snazzwagon. Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy. Deffkilla Wartrike. These are all real names for Ork vehicles, and Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks lets you drive all of them. The game does a commendable job of capturing that rough whimsy of 40K‘s resident comic relief faction, and the game is a blast in short bursts. My only worry is how much longevity it will have, especially considering its free-to-play model.

While more of a vehicle deathmatch than a racing game, Speed Freeks nontheless puts you behind the wheel of one of several cobbled-together warmachines each with its own setup of boosts and weaponry. And there’s a decent spread of roles too, from short range armor-shredders to slow-but-powerful tanks (looted from some other species, naturally) that can fire missiles guided by a little goblin riding on top. My favorite was the Grot Mega Tank, a huge bruiser of a vehicle built like a battleship and with a front-mounted scoop for flipping anyone foolish enough to get close.

Each vehicle has a short spread of abilities, usually a primary fire, a secondary, a dash and then something else. The two tank classes trade their dash for a heal-over-time, but generally they all stick to this formula. Additionally, some trukks in Speed Freeks have a fixed weapon mounting or turret angle limitation that can affect your firepower. For example, the ship-like Mega Tank mentioned earlier has it’s turrets mounted lengthways so you’ll need to align yourself broadside-style to get them all firing at once. It’s a nice little extra consideration to learn in order to get the most out of your vehicle.

Matches of Speed Freeks are played in either Deff Rally or Kill Konvoy modes. Rather than a straight race, Deff Rally is a rush to get to a capture point and get kills while holding it, repeating with different locations before a final race to the finish. Meanwhile, Kill Konvoy has your team escorting an enormous Stompa, the ork interpretation of a super-heavy mech, which will be racing against its enemy counterpart. Kills speed it up, but you can also grab bombs from the field and drive them in to the opposing Stompa to stun it briefly.

A special shout-out has to be made for the maps themselves, which are surprisingly pretty for being mostly empty wasteland. I was especially fond of the Ice level that had a titanic imperial city looming in the background, the imposing gothic construction making for a lovely contrast to the Ork shanties. Fighter jets cruise overhead as stray salvoes litter the sky, with the hilarious implication that all these junkyard derbies are occuring as the rest of the planet is embroiled in a fight for survival.

There are a few missed opportunities, however. Despite the ramshackle nature of Ork construction lending itself perfectly to ‘kustomizin’, the options are pretty lacking outside of a nice array of colors. Similarly, if any game warranted a Burnout-style crash and destruction system, it’s Speed Freeks, but other than the Mega Tank’s scoop I never felt like crashing into someone was ever much of an advantage unless you were knocking them into a rock or something.

There’s also the battle pass system and shop, or in fact the progression system as a whole. While it’s nice that the offerings are so vestigial as to be unobtrustive, I also can’t really see why anyone would spend money unless it’s for one of the two slightly annoying-to-unlock vehicles. And once you have unlocked each vehicle there wasn’t really anything compelling me to go complete challenges. You can unlock a few skulls or spikes to put on your trukk of choice, but nothing that gave me any motivation to grind for.

Still, if you’re looking for something as simple as it is loud, Speed Freeks offers fun in spades. And if you’re someone tired of the endless progression grind of live service games, some of these negatives might actually be bonuses for you. I do worry how long it can sustain itself, but as a free-to-play game it’s definetly worth giving a go if your craving some vehicular carnage.

Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks is available now for PC via Steam Early Access.