RV There Yet?
Nuggets Entertainment · Indie, Action, Adventure
Overview
A co-op adventure about driving your Recreational Vehicle home.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT10,000 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
RV There Yet? is a physics co-op game about getting a battered RV home through the wilderness, and the people who like it mostly describe laughing through it with friends. 38% of the longer reviews talk about playing with friends, a partner or family. The praise centres on chaotic group problem-solving, the winch, a price reviewers call low, and a story told through cassette tapes that builds to an ending a number of reviewers rave about. A few who reached the third map say it raised their opinion of the whole game.
Bugs lead the complaints. Bugs, clipping and unpredictable physics come up in 26% of the longer reviews and in 46% of the longer negative ones, often alongside an RV that falls apart after a light bump. Critics also object to a checkpoint system that saves before you repair, so every retry means redoing the same chores, to bears and other wildlife that can wreck the RV in seconds, and to crashes and heavy performance demands. Solo play, idle passengers and the snowy second map are where opinion splits.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Chaotic co-op fun with friendsHigh
Friends are at the centre of the praise. 38% of the longer reviews mention playing with friends, a partner, siblings or a parent, and 16% talk about laughing or chaos. Players describe one person driving stick while another hangs off a winch, a third grills burgers in the back and someone gets thrown off a cliff, and they say the failures are as memorable as the wins. "It's a friendship stress test with wheels," one reviewer wrote, and another said "Haven't cried with laughter at a game in years but this broke us." Couples and a few parents playing with their kids also write in, and a few reviewers suggest two or three players as the right group size. How the game holds up without a group is covered below.
Value for the priceMedium
12% of the longer reviews bring up price or value, usually to say the game gives a lot for what it costs. Reviewers quote prices around $8, 7 euros or £6 and report getting 20 hours or more out of the maps. "It might be the best deal in modern gaming since it costs less than a bag of chips and overdelivers in every area," one wrote. The few who disagree say the game is too rough for its price, and some mention refunding it.
Small comic touches: smoking, beer, burgers and hatsMedium
11% of the longer reviews mention the cigarettes and beer, which give stamina and speed boosts, and burgers, coffee, hats and glasses come up too. Most of these mentions are jokes about chain-smoking down a mountain, and a few reviewers enjoy the redneck road-trip flavour. A small number object: one reviewer said "Plus I really despite smoking and drinking :/ And this game is just forcing you into this", and another asked for a way to swap smoking out. A few reviewers also single out the soundtrack and the radio tapes.
Story, tapes and the endingMedium
10% of the longer reviews talk about the story, the cassette tapes or the ending, and nearly all of them come from people with many hours in the game. Several say they expected no story at all ("I never expected this game to have a story."), and one advises that "If you listen to the tapes scattered around the checkpoints you will uncover a story that is easy to miss." Reactions to the third map's ending run from "Genuinely one of the best endings of a video game ever" to a bare "absolute cinema", a meme that turns up in dozens of short reviews, though not all of them are about the ending. A handful found the plot confusing or the ending a letdown.
Free maps added after launchLow
6% of the longer reviews mention new maps or updates, often thanking the developer for two extra maps they say cost nothing. "Each of the (free!) maps that has been released after launch has introduced new items, new mechanics" is typical. Some ask for more maps, Steam Workshop support or a sequel, and a few critics say bug fixes should have come before new content.
Where players are split
Difficulty and frustrationHigh
18% of the longer reviews call the game hard, unforgiving or rage-inducing. Fans enjoy the challenge and say it pays off: "It is way more forgiving than you might think from just watching videos." Critics say the difficulty climbs in the second half of each map, in the dark caves and lava of the first map and the ice and wind of the second, until "it becomes so difficult its frustrating and no longer fun, which is the whole point of a game." A couple of critics point to the low share of players with the first-checkpoint achievement as proof that many groups quit early.
Winch and plank problem-solvingMedium
14% of the longer reviews mention the winch, planks, bridges or puzzles. Fans love the freedom to find their own route: "The winch is really fun since you can just do anything with it", and a few describe skipping whole sections with risky routes or clever winching. Critics say the winch snags on geometry or flings the RV, and that planks are thrown rather than placed: "Using the winch is a 50/50 death sentence, taking damage is a pure gamble, and the vehicle physics are just exhausting." One asked that "Planks should show a view of how they will be placed before dropping them."
The later maps: Mt. Yurbuttsk and St. Buttin BayMedium
10% of the longer reviews talk about the second or third map or the first map's cave section. The snowy second map divides players. Some think it improved on the first ("Second map is even better than the first one, introducing some new mechanics and being harder yet not boring or annoying."), while others describe goats, a leopard, storms that halt progress and ice that destroys the RV: "The second map (the snow one) is the first game that I think genuinely tested my patience." The third map is mostly praised for its variety and finale ("But then we played Map 3, and WOW."), though a player who hit a soft lock when a monkey stole their dynamite called it broken: "The new level is absolutely broken and I have no clue why it was released."
Playing solo or in small groupsMedium
7% of the longer reviews talk about solo play. More of them say the game is weaker alone than say it holds up ("9/10 for playing with buddies. 5/10 by yourself."), and some critics playing alone got stuck on sections that seem built for two people, such as the ferry or boat crossings. One player reports finishing every map solo after their friends quit. Some solo buyers say finding strangers to play with is hard, and others complain that public lobbies fill with players who wreck the run.
The "friendslop" labelMedium
6% of the longer reviews use the word "friendslop". Fans use it fondly or argue the game is better than the label ("Friendslop is an insult to this masterpiece of a game."). Critics use it to mean the game is only fun because friends are, as in "Anything is fun with friends." Some negative reviews compare it with Peak and R.E.P.O. and say those are more polished.
What frustrates players
Bugs, clipping and an RV that breaks from light bumpsHigh
26% of the longer reviews mention bugs, glitches, jank, clipping or physics, and so do 46% of the longer negative reviews. Reported problems include players and items falling through the RV floor or the map, the winch remote vanishing, wheels sinking into terrain, and the RV launching into the air or exploding on a gentle slope. Some say tiny contacts do huge damage: "Sometimes I'm just driving I'll touch the tip of some leaves and my whole car is torn apart, this is very frustrating." Some fans accept the jank as part of the comedy ("Very buggy! Would recommend."), but critics draw the line at bugs that cost progress: "Not every bug causes funny chaos." A few critics say old bugs were still there months after launch.
Checkpoints that save before your repairsMedium
The save system comes up in 9% of the longer negative reviews. The game saves as you reach a checkpoint, with a damaged RV and empty shelves, so every death means redoing the welding, scrap gathering and restocking. "Checkpoint saves when you reach it, not when you leave it, so you need to do all the repairs and maintenance AGAIN and again every time you die after that checkpoint." Others add that checkpoints can be far apart and that a session can't be saved partway through. The reviewer quoted above says a quality-of-life fix here would let them recommend the game.
Bears, snakes and other wildlifeMedium
11% of the longer reviews mention bears, snakes, goats, monkeys, sharks or other animals. The complaint is that animals spawn close, attack through walls and can strip the RV in seconds while bear spray is scarce: "Bears are super common and impossible to get away from unless you have bear spray (ultra rare item)." Snakes that are hard to see, goats on the snow map and an eagle that hunts players in the open also draw complaints. A few ask for the bears to be toned down.
Crashes, freezes and performanceMedium
6% of the longer reviews report crashes, freezes or poor performance. Reports include freezes that need Task Manager, crashes in multiplayer sessions and black screens on launch, along with frame rates that seem low for the art style: "this game with simple graphics uses 100% of my 5080 at 2k ultrawide at around 110fps." One player put it simply: "I'm loving this game, but I keep freezing." Others report it running fine on older hardware, so experiences vary by machine.
Clunky onboarding and controlsLow
6% of the longer reviews mention controls, the missing tutorial, getting into the RV or carrying items, and the tutorial complaints come mostly from people who stopped early. Players say they started with no idea what to do ("funny and entertaining but omg no tutorial and figuring things out as you go is awful"), that the short characters struggle with the RV steps ("When just getting into the stupid thing has a less than 50% success rate"), that you can only carry one item at a time, and that manual gear shifting is tied to mouse sensitivity. A few ask for steering wheel support.
Too little to do for passengersLow
A small group of reviews say that with three or four players, only the driver and one helper are busy: "One player drives, one player navigates, and the other two get the honor of sitting around." A few reviewers make the same point by suggesting two or three players rather than four.
Motion sicknessLow
Motion sickness comes up in 1% of the longer reviews (29), many of them written within the first hour or two of play. Some say turning off head bob and raising the field of view did not help: "This is the fastest a game has ever triggered motion sickness for me." They ask for more camera options, such as a third-person view, and one suggests a warning on the store page.
Griefers, lobby privacy and voice chatLow
A small number of reviews describe random players or hackers joining sessions set to friends-only and wrecking the RV or progress: "parties set to invite-only and friends-only switch back to public and we keep having random people join." Others report proximity chat failing for the host, disconnects, and invites that do not work.
3. The player conversation
Much of the conversation is joyful and joke-heavy. A large share of reviews are one-liners about smoking, bears, throwing friends off cliffs, golf, or "absolute cinema", and long reviews often read like trip reports from a group of friends. Critical reviews are fewer but more detailed: structured lists of bugs, save-system complaints and comparisons with Peak or R.E.P.O., often ending with a promise to change the review once fixes arrive.
Playtime shows who raises what. Complaints about motion sickness, the missing tutorial, getting into the RV and early crashes come mostly from people who stopped within the first couple of hours. Bugs, wildlife and the save system come from all stages. Talk about the story, the second and third maps and the ending comes almost entirely from players who spent many evenings with the game, so both the praise for the ending and the complaints about particular maps sit there. The share of recommending reviews stayed between 78% and 94% in every week from launch onward. Reviews written after the second and third maps arrived shifted the talk toward those maps, with the snowy map drawing more anger and the beach map drawing praise for its finale.
4. What the developers could do
- Fix the collision and physics bugs that destroy the RV or lose items. Bugs and physics are the most common complaint in the negative reviews, and critics single out bugs that cost progress, such as items falling through the floor, the winch flinging the RV, and wheels sinking into terrain.
- Save after repairs, or let players save at a checkpoint before leaving. Critics describe redoing the same welding and restocking after every death, and one says a fix here would let them recommend the game.
- Tone down wildlife and give players ways to deal with it. Bears that strip the RV in seconds, scarce bear spray, attacks through walls and goats on the snow map come up in critical reviews, and a few ask for the bears to be toned down.
- Improve stability and performance. Freezes that need Task Manager, multiplayer crashes and heavy GPU use for simple visuals push some players to refund.
- Smooth out onboarding and handling. Reviewers ask for a basic tutorial, easier RV entry, a plank placement preview, the ability to carry more than one item, gear shifting that isn't tied to mouse sensitivity and steering wheel support.
- Rebalance the hardest stretches of the later maps. The cave section, the ice and storms of Mt. Yurbuttsk and soft locks on St. Buttin Bay draw map-specific complaints, some from players who loved the first map.
- Make lobby privacy settings hold and fix host voice chat. Players report friends-only sessions turning public and griefers joining, plus proximity chat failing for the host.
- Add motion sickness options and more for passengers to do. Head bob and FOV changes did not help sensitive players, and some groups of four say two of them often have nothing to do.
