RV There Yet? Guest Review By Duncan Voice (Indie Choices)

(Quick Note From CX Dave)

I’ve met some fantastic people throughout my time in writing for CX and beyond, that truly love the industry and have a real passion for not just gaming, but content creation, but I’ve not met someone quite like Duncan Voice from Indie Choices.

I have a lot of time for Duncan, a genuine great person, with wonderful takes on, not just gaming, but on life itself. Someone who is always willing to help, wears his heart on his sleeve, and produces fantastic content.

You Can find Duncan at duncs (@duncsvoice) • Instagram photos and videos & indie choices (@indiechoices) | TikTok

Review By Duncan Voice

Living in Somerset, I regularly frequent the M5 on trips to see family and friends down in Devon and Cornwall. As such, I often am blessed with the sight of the back end of an obnoxiously large caravan as it trundles along the middle lane at 68mph, dreaming only of overpriced fish and chips in Looe and not getting out of the sodding way.

I would, however, prefer to be stuck behind Keith and Sue’s palace on wheels than I would behind the recreational vehicle that you and three friends try and navigate home in RV There Yet.

An entry into the (in my opinion) unfairly named friendslop genre, RV There Yet pits you and up to three mates with navigating your RV home through the wild back country, after a relaxing holiday. But this holiday is about as relaxing as a kids go free weekend at Butlin’s, as not only do you have to contend with driving this fragile four-wheeled Ford (maybe), but also poisonous snakes, eagles and bears. Bears are especially terrifying because they turn up at the most inopportune moment – usually straight after a tricky section – and will absolutely wreck your RV.

This is where RV There Yet shines. Navigating takes a real effort of coordinating and trying not to verbally abuse each other (but in a fun way). There’s tiny makeshift bridges where one wrong move sees the RV hurtle down a ravine in a van destroying inevitability. One of you is driving, the other on winching duty. Another is giving directions and your last mate is having a smoke wearing a new hat they just picked up.

Slowly but surely you make it over unscathed, with the garage checkpoint in sight, the last hour of work soon to be saved. The relief is palpable, only to be replaced with dread as an ursine roar heralding the destruction of your progress pierces through your celebrations. You all scream as the bear batters the RV. There goes a wheel. “WHERE DID YOU PUT THE BEAR SPRAY!?”, you scream. There goes a bumper. You all start throwing cans of beer at the bear to chase it off. In a last ditch effort, you try and drive off to the checkpoint. You’re still winched. You can’t think through the desperate screams trying to unhook the van. There goes the roof.

RV There Yet feels purposefully designed to make the most of the TikTok-ification of this genre, to generate viral clips that look so mental, and so fun, that you don’t need a marketing budget – just some mates barely scraping through. The flipside of this however are the periods of calm where there really isn’t much going on, so if you’re not in the driving seat things can feel very sedate.

There is definitely some jankiness, and it can at points feel difficult to handle. Dropping a plank of wood to make a ramp in exactly the right spot can often feel like a war of attrition against your patience. Perhaps this is the point, the looseness of the physics engine purposefully feeling a bit iffy in order to manufacture more moments of stress and therefore fun.

I did encounter a few bugs, with a snake managing to headbutt my RV off a bridge the most notable. Infuriating or hilarious, depending on the circumstance. If you consider the price point, and the fact it’s on Game Pass, RV There Yet is ultimately a very fun way to waste a few hours with your mates.