Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services PC Review

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Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services is a new simulator game available now via simulator publishing giant Aerosoft. The game was developed by Caipirinha Games (Road Maintenance SimulatorForklift Simulator). It is available on Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Maintaining Roads Can Be Such a Chore

Simulator games are a hit and miss for me. Some are really, really interesting – whereas others are outright boring. Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services looks like it could be the former, so I gave it a try. Things didn’t go exactly to plan though as I’ll share below.

Tablet screen displaying a map with a "Control Route" game interface and route selection options.
Tasks are selected from the tablet to complete.

Gameplay

Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services is a simulation game where you play as a maintenance worker for the roads of a small area in Germany. The objective is fairly straightforward: complete the various road maintenance tasks assigned from your tablet. The first task you receive is to  drive a control route around the area which then populates your task list with additional items to fix. You then are to carry about your business completing said tasks and as far as I could tell, that is the extent of the game. Despite having “Winter Services” specifically in the title, the game starts you off in the Spring. One would expect to at least start the season before winter, rather than after with that title.

Honestly I don’t know where exactly to go with my review of Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services from here. I was playing the game on PC and the initial issue I ran into was that the driving control for keyboard and mouse is terrible. There is an odd delay between pressing the A or D keys to turn and it felt like it was all or nothing rather than gradual, light movements as I intended. So I picked up my controller (still using my Nacon Camo Revolution X Pro by the way) and that did help slightly, but then I ran into other issues. The game recognized that I had switched over to controller but after a time started giving me tooltips for keyboard/mouse instead of controller or an odd mixture of both. This persisted through restarts as well.

Another Bump in the Road

Next, as I you’re driving along the control route, the new tasks appear on your current task step list. This makes it appear as if you need to address the issues before completing your route, rather than just adding them to your overall tasks (which is what it actually does). I found that when working on tasks, current steps would often either just disappear without progressing or not complete entirely. Getting in and out of the vehicle would sometimes fix this but not always.

Pulling up the task list on the tablet just gives you the full list of steps with no indication of the current one needing to be completed. Restarting the game also resets the task you’re on so you have to start all over and hope it doesn’t bug out again. I spent more time trying to fix broken gameplay than actually playing  Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services.

Tedium of this Simulation

Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services has simple gameplay issues beyond things being flat out broken. Firstly, you can only accept one task at a time, which is both tedious and time consuming. Especially given that the average working individual would be able to properly organize their workload to be efficient instead of driving back to the depot after the smallest of tasks. Loading up one single delineator onto a truck’s flatbed to drive across the map with it when I could have done 3 other tasks as well is just nonsense. Secondly, pulling up the tablet to select a task was also broken at least every other time with controller and wouldn’t allow me to switch between the different available tasks.

In addition to the tedium of the single task restriction, the gameplay itself is just downright dull and boring. Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services provides very little in the way of fleshed out gameplay. Yes you can clean and wash your vehicles. You can also refuel them. But there’s not really a reward system or anything for completing tasks. In fact there’s very little in the way of player incentive to even play the game beyond achievements. Some simple systems such as managing finances, fleet, and supplies would be nice and I honestly was expecting something to this degree. I couldn’t help but also notice that NPC vehicles in the game are completely mindless and will sooner wait for you to move than go around. So what’s the point of even getting cones and lights out?

Utility vehicle and worker on roadside with traffic and forest backdrop, text "Storm damage" visible.
These drivers seem to be more content just sitting around waiting than just going around…

Graphics & Audio

For this review I was playing Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services on the PC. The graphics for this game feel like they are on par with other simulation games in similar realms of industry. That also means that things are fairly simplistic and lacking in as much detail that could go into the game. Specifically, being able to very clearly see where your vehicle is dirty and that you’re actually cleaning it off. Every NPC vehicle also has no drivers or passengers visible within the vehicle model. This adds to the mindless drone feeling and lack of intelligent gameplay.

Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services has weather and task sound effects. It also has a music playlist on the tablet that you can play through. I didn’t play much with them but it sure sounds like a lot of country songs. Take it or leave it it is at least there to add some flavor.

A worker in hi-vis attire stands by vehicles on the road, with a traffic sign task prompt.
“Sir I’d like to speak to you about your… sir? Hello?”

Longevity

As I mentioned above, Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services is severely lacking in gameplay. It boasts having 40 different tasks to complete. With the broken state I was experiencing I think I was able to complete three or four. You’ll spend more time wasting your time driving back to the depot. The only longevity this game has is for someone completing all the achievements. That or if you just want to play digital trucks instead of with your Tonka truck in the backyard. But really, there are better simulation games out there for that.

Final Thoughts

If you couldn’t tell by my review above, Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services is not a good game. Through the years writing for Thumb Culture I’ve encountered games in Early Access that have more content than this game. Perhaps the gameplay is better on console, but for PC it just seems to be mostly broken and unplayable.

Therefore, I have to award Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services the Thumb Culture Broken Thumb Award. A sad day indeed.

Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.

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One thought on “Road Maintenance Simulator 2 – Winter Services PC Review

  1. This is an awful game, terrible graphics, terrible game play, terrible music. I bought this hoping on par with other Construction simulator games and what a mistake.
    I tried to be patient and gave it a few times before leaving a review.
    This should not be £24.99 on the PS5 store.
    Even if it’s a monthly free game I’d delete it.
    Don’t waste your money.💩💩💩

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