SnowRunner — Quick tips to get you started

Looking for some tips before you dive headfirst into SnowRunner? Don’t let the game give you the cold shoulder! You’ll be nice and frosty as long as you keep this advice in mind. Sorry. Too many snow puns, I know.

Switch to the truck you find outside your first garage immediately

I know you’ll need to buy a place to load cargo for it, but the highway truck you find during the tutorial is not going to do well. So, you’re gonna need to switch to that other truck you just found. Just suck it up and spend the cash or you’ll be sorry you wasted so much time trying to play the game with one hand figuratively tied behind your back.

Sell whatever trucks and parts you aren’t using

You get an item’s full cash value when selling them, and you’re going to want to buy a better truck as soon as humanly possible. There is no wasting money in SnowRunner and you can get the full purchase price back no matter what, so don’t worry about what to buy. Finding new trucks out in the maps for free is a great way to make some serious cash, too. Hell, you probably want to sell the first two trucks you get your hands on when you get the aforementioned third one, as there’s just not a whole lot of reasons to keep them around when you could use the $40,000 instead.

Watch where you’re going

This seems obvious, but it’s really easy to get stuck in SnowRunner. Simply dipping just a couple of your wheels into water, or not avoiding some darker mud, can cause your plans to get dashed in mere seconds. You’ll get better at deducing what to stay away from with time, although there will be occasions where doing so will be a bit impossible.

The winch is your lifeline

There’s no reason not to use the winch all the time. You can either select your winch point via a menu or just launch it at the nearest point with the press of a button. You can use the winch to either drive towards what you winch onto, or you can pull yourself with the winch itself, which is often the surer bet. However, if the thing you winch onto weighs less than your truck, you’ll generally just rip it out of the ground, so don’t pull yourself with small trees.

Focus on repairing pathways before contracts

It’s tempting to just jump straight into SnowRunner‘s contracts, but you’re not going to be in much of a position to do them when the map is blocking your progress all the time. Before you start working your way through a list of contracts, explore the map and get a feel for it. And then repair any bridges or rock slides, otherwise, you may find yourself incapable of even delivering the cargo you picked up.

Keep an eye on your gas

Some maps routinely have you drive by gas stations, so this one can sneak up on you. Later ones, though, have barely any gas stations around and you’ll have to make trips with barely enough gas to get to your cargo and get it back. Your choice of truck is crucial here, as some are greedy gas guzzlers that can get you down to zero liters in no time. Which leads me to my next point.

Only use all-wheel drive when you need to

All-wheel drive is necessary in SnowRunner. You won’t even be able to go most places if your truck doesn’t have it, although nearly all of them do. That being said, all-wheel-drive uses significantly more gas, so you shouldn’t just leave it on at all times. If you’re driving on the blacktop or going downhill, you don’t need to have it turned on. Thankfully, turning it on and off is a snap.

Buy new tires when they’re available

Ranking up grants you access to new vehicles and customization options. Perhaps tires don’t scream important quite as a whole truck does, but they make a noticeable difference. The default tires on most early vehicles are quite poor for both offroad and mud, so take note of when tires with better ratings become unlocked so that you can grab them right away.

Don’t forget to bring a trailer

Contracts often have multiple objectives. And sometimes you’ll leave a warehouse, make a delivery, and then have to return to that same warehouse to get another load of cargo. Or you can bring a trailer and grab more stuff. Make a note of what cargo is needed for available tasks and missions and grab something else so that you can complete two objectives for one trip. It’s worth the effort.

Use other trucks for towing or refueling 

SnowRunner is very fond of stranding you, but you can always hop into another truck and go and help your mid-mission truck. If you have two trucks close to each other, you can use the menu to quickly switch between them or allow one truck to refuel with the other. This does leave the other truck empty most of the time, though, so you’ll need to send them back to the garage once you’re ready to get out of there.

Be careful where you leave cargo

If your truck tips over or wrecks in a way that causes its cargo to fall out, that cargo will still be there ever after your truck is gone. If you’re trying to make your way through a tricky area, you can foreseeably block your path forward with cargo you’ve dropped, so be mindful of that. You don’t want to have to deal with the headache of getting that crap out of the way in an area that’s already giving you problems.

That’s all for our SnowRunner tips. There’s a lot to the game, but you’ll have it all figured out in no time. Unless you don’t figure it out, I mean. That’s not really my problem, though, so take that as you will. As always, if you have tips of your own or feel the urge to tell me how crappy mine are, leave a pointed comment below. Just don’t make fun of my hair. I don’t think I could handle that.