Trailmakers

About

Trailmakers is a single player and multiplayer open world racing game. It was developed by Flashbulb and was released on September 18, 2019. It received very positive reviews from players.

Includes: The Base Game, Hat PACK, Skin pack, Skin Pack 2.

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92%Audience ScoreBased on 24,482 reviews

gameplay285 positive mentions

stability307 negative mentions

Intuitive and robust vehicle-building mechanics that appeal to both casual and experienced players, supporting creativity and physics-based gameplay.
Bright, colorful, and charming art style with visually pleasing graphics and immersive sound effects that enhance the playful atmosphere.
Strong replayability driven by open-world exploration, multiplayer fun, mod support, and the sandbox nature encouraging experimentation.

Campaign modes are repetitive, grind-heavy, and lack engaging narrative, often consisting of fetch quests and tedious tasks.
Performance and optimization issues including frequent bugs, crashes, physics glitches, and poor multiplayer stability, especially on lower-end hardware.
Aggressive monetization with many DLCs locking significant content behind paywalls, frustrating players and detracting from the overall experience.

gameplay
1,037 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
27%
50%
23%
Trailmakers offers intuitive and robust vehicle-building mechanics that appeal to both casual and mechanically inclined players, providing a sandbox experience focused on creativity and physics-based gameplay. While it excels in customization, exploration, and multiplayer fun, the gameplay can become repetitive with limited progression in campaign modes, and some features and content are locked behind numerous DLCs. Despite occasional bugs and a moderate learning curve, its physics and design systems deliver satisfying, imaginative vehicle construction and a compelling creative loop.
- “The game's building mechanics are intuitive yet sophisticated, providing a gratifying experience for both neophytes and seasoned virtuosos of construction alike. Each creation is a testament to the player's ingenuity, an opus that combines aesthetic sensibility with mechanical acumen. The inclusion of a campaign mode, where players are tasked with recovering parts to rebuild their spaceship, adds a narrative dimension that enriches the gameplay experience.”
- “Trailmakers is a creative sandbox game that blends vehicle building, physics-based gameplay, and open-world exploration into one surprisingly addictive package. Developed by Flashbulb Games, Trailmakers gives players the tools to design anything from simple cars and boats to flying machines and absurd mechanical monstrosities. The sound design is solid as well, with satisfying engine noises and impactful crashes that reinforce the physics-driven gameplay.”
- “The intuitive building mechanics make it easy to bring your wildest ideas to life. The gameplay mechanics are incredibly user-friendly, making it accessible for players of all ages. With its outstanding building mechanics, breathtaking open world, and endless possibilities, Trailmakers offers a true sandbox of fun and discovery.”
- “The pioneer gameplay loop just sucks, every mission I've seen was basically go to point A, pick up X, bring X to point B, repeat. Not only that, but most parts are unlocked by simply exploring except it feels random. You'd go to a chest on a coastline and instead of finding a boat part you'll find a pipe pack or get cosmetic parts like a beach ball launcher while not having suspensions, so you'll just go around desperately looking for a useful part to make your box on wheels an actual vehicle and not find anything.”
- “The gameplay is riddled with bugs, bad sound design, and terrible physics.”
- “There are zero tutorials on how to build your first vehicles, only way to learn is either copying tutorials of other players or spending incredibly long time figuring out this game's messed up mechanics on your own.”
story
474 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
23%
66%
11%
The story modes in this game offer a basic premise centered on exploration, vehicle building, and fetch or rescue quests, but many players find them repetitive, grind-heavy, and lacking depth or engaging narrative. While some appreciate the added structure and challenges the campaigns provide, especially the "stranded in space" and DLC stories, others feel the missions are tedious and detract from the otherwise enjoyable sandbox and vehicle-building gameplay. Overall, the story is seen as supplementary and light, with the game’s strongest appeal lying in its creative sandbox experience rather than its plot or campaign content.
- “Starting with the pioneer campaign: the missions and pacing of the starting region are an excellent introduction to the game's mechanics and provide the player with a threatening enough environment to force creativity and exploration.”
- “The story mode is well paced; I admire how it motivates learning new mechanics by providing a variety of obstacles and challenges.”
- “The story is well thought out, the characters are funny, and there’s great freedom in how you approach the campaign.”
- “The pioneer gameplay loop just sucks; every mission I've seen is basically go to point A, pick up X, bring X to point B, repeat. Not only that, but most parts are unlocked by simply exploring except it feels random. You might go to a chest on a coastline and instead of finding a boat part you'll find a pipe pack or cosmetic parts like a beach ball launcher while missing suspensions, so you'll just go around desperately looking for a useful part to make your box on wheels an actual vehicle and not find anything.”
- “Most of the settlement quests are just the same three rescue quests over and over, and not only are the rescue quests tedious on their own, but they also require you to have a pretty big vehicle to transport the NPCs back to the settlement, which then means even more grinding. However, it shouldn't take until the last third of the campaign for the game to start being fun consistently, and even with all of this, being forced to do nothing but the same three rescue missions over and over, despite being easier with flying vehicles, is still incredibly tedious, and you still have to spend the time to grind materials for making a flying vehicle.”
- “The 'campaigns' (if you can even call them that) are basically half-assed fetch quests where you ferry people across the map. Despite how simple the missions are, enemy spawns, resource shortages, level grinding, janky physics, and vast distances between points A and B make even simple tasks feel like chores. The frog transport missions are especially irritating because they feel like a total waste of time. The quests just repeat with a higher quantity (pick up 4/6/8, destroy 4/6/8) and there is virtually no story; the planet is quite lifeless and mostly unremarkable.”
graphics
449 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
41%
56%
3%
Trailmakers features a bright, colorful, and stylized art style that complements its playful, creative gameplay, offering visually pleasing and charming graphics rather than hyper-realistic visuals. The game runs well on a range of PCs, with graphics settings that can be adjusted to accommodate lower-end hardware, though higher settings may cause performance issues on less powerful systems. While generally praised for its good graphics and smooth visuals, some users report occasional glitches, limited graphical customization options, and optimization challenges.
- “The graphics are resplendent with vivid colors and meticulous detail, rendering the game world both visually appealing and immersive.”
- “Visually, Trailmakers is stunning, with its bright colors and charming art style perfectly complementing the playful gameplay.”
- “The game has great physics and graphics but I would not recommend it for people with bad computers because it is quite laggy.”
- “Lazy garbage graphics, clunky controls, and so many glitches that even if you wanted to play this cashgrab mess you can't.”
- “I can't even enter the game, I need to lower the graphics but it crashes when I create my character and wait in loading.”
- “Sadly, the game is poorly optimized, I get 11fps on minimum graphics.”
stability
314 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
2%
98%
The game is widely reported as buggy and unstable, with frequent physics glitches, crashes, freezes, and inconsistent behavior causing frustration and lost progress for many players. While some glitches add a humorous or creative element, numerous game-breaking bugs remain unaddressed, particularly in multiplayer and building systems, hindering overall playability and polish. Stability issues persist despite ongoing updates, leading to mixed experiences and calls for better optimization and bug fixes.
- “Runs great at top settings.”
- “With no glitches or collision problems whatsoever.”
- “The game runs great, having had even more optimizations in a recent update; I'm able to host a game with me and a couple of friends playing and it runs smooth even on my 4 core/4 thread Intel i5-7600 CPU.”
- “The optimization of the game is just straight up bad, there are a lot of bugs and glitches that go ignored by the devs. The campaigns add nothing of value to a game advertised as a sandbox. Many blocks don't work properly, and 20% of them are locked behind a paywall. This is due to the dev team being lazy.”
- “The game is nice in single player mode, but the co-op campaign crashes every 10 minutes. The multiplayer co-op mode is very buggy and would have been much better than single player if it worked properly.”
- “The building is incredibly easy to get into and the destruction physics are spectacular. However, the physics engine is very buggy and unstable, causing vehicles to randomly spin out of control.”
optimization
166 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
23%
61%
16%
Optimization in the game receives mixed feedback: while many praise its generally smooth performance on medium to high-end systems and improvements over time, significant issues remain—especially with complex builds, multiplayer lag, and on lower-end hardware. Frequent crashes, frame drops, and unaddressed bugs frustrate some players, with calls for better stability and optimization to fully realize the game's potential. Overall, optimization is workable but uneven, and further enhancements would greatly benefit the user experience.
- “I have 131 hours in this game; it runs super smooth and has great optimization. It's also a great game with multiple campaigns and things to do, 10/10 worth every dollar.”
- “The game itself is optimized well as my 7 years old 750 ti is able to run it well.”
- “On top of that, the game’s very well optimized and polished.”
- “The optimization of the game is just straight up bad; there are a lot of bugs and glitches that go ignored by the devs. The campaigns add nothing of value to a game advertised as a sandbox, the amount of blocks and specific building materials are lackluster with 20% blocked by a paywall. Some blocks just don’t work properly because of the dev team being lazy.”
- “The game's performance is trash. I do not recommend this to those who want a worthwhile game.”
- “This game is seriously unoptimized to the point that multiplayer is unplayable, at least for a somewhat low-spec build that includes a GPU of GTX 1050 or lower.”
humor
161 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
99%
1%
The game's humor is largely driven by its physics-based chaos, quirky glitches, and the creative freedom to build outrageous, often malfunctioning contraptions, which lead to many hilarious and memorable moments. Players especially enjoy the funny mishaps in multiplayer with friends, where unintentional failures and trolling add to the fun. While occasional bugs can be frustrating, most are seen as amusing quirks that enhance the game's comedic charm.
- “The physics engine doesn’t judge—it just obeys, sometimes with spectacularly unintentional results that send you cartwheeling off a cliff, laughing and screaming simultaneously.”
- “It’s the kind of game where creativity is king, failure is funny, and “stable design” is for cowards.”
- “Watching your creation come to life—sometimes in spectacularly hilarious failures—is a big part of the charm.”
grinding
111 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
3%
23%
74%
Grinding in the game is widely viewed as tedious and time-consuming, with many players criticizing repetitive missions, slow resource gathering, and progression gating that hampers enjoyment. While some find the grind manageable or even rewarding with friends, most reviews agree it significantly detracts from the overall experience, especially in later campaigns where grinding intensifies and rewards feel insufficient. Quality-of-life improvements and mod support could alleviate some frustration, but the grind remains a major barrier to sustained fun.
- “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
- “No thrilling story, no grinding, no difficult opponents, no bugs.”
- “Building should be fun, not tedious and finicky.”
- “Most of the settlement quests are just the same 3 rescue quests over and over, and not only are the rescue quests tedious on their own, but they also require you to have a pretty big vehicle to transport the NPCs back to the settlement which then means even more grinding.”
- “You have to spend hours grinding materials and settlement missions to get enough power cores for your vehicle and to be able to craft the parts for it.”
- “The problem is these campaigns are pretty meh, and fairly grindy to just unlock everything so you can build what you actually want.”
monetization
48 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
6%
36%
58%
The monetization of the game is widely criticized as aggressive and cash-grabby, with numerous expensive DLCs and constant in-game advertisements that frustrate players. Many feel the paywalls restrict content unfairly and detract from the gameplay experience, turning a previously enjoyable game into a series of costly microtransactions and pop-up ads. While some acknowledge the developers need funding for ongoing support, most users believe the current monetization approach is excessive and harms the game's reputation.
- “Only downside there are quite a lot of DLC, but this is instead of microtransactions.”
- “Don't have microtransactions, at least I didn't see any, but with this quality of gameplay, it is justified to not include them.”
- “As long as it doesn't go the way of microtransactions, this will always be a go-to game for me.”
- “Really bad monetization with 10+ DLCs.”
- “A pretty cool game, however I cannot in good conscience recommend it due to it feeling like a lazy cash grab with its constant bugs and unreasonable amount of content locked behind a paywall.”
- “The game is just being held back by massive paywalls; when I got this game I was really excited but the moment you open the game, boom, massive ads telling you to buy the DLCs. Want more than 2 skins?”
music
48 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
46%
48%
6%
The game's music and sound design generally enhance its immersive and playful atmosphere, with many players praising the lively soundtrack and satisfying sound effects. However, some find the music repetitive, minimal, or even annoying after extended play, often choosing to turn it off or play their own instead. Overall, while the sound effects are well-regarded, the limited and sometimes forgettable music leaves mixed impressions.
- “Accompanying the visuals is a lively soundtrack and satisfying sound effects that enhance the playful and adventurous tone of the game.”
- “The delightful sound effects and music enhance the atmosphere, creating an unforgettable gaming experience that keeps you coming back for more.”
- “The soundtrack is really good (by that I mean all the sound in game, not just music) like big bulky monster truck engines sound like big bulky monster truck engines.”
- “The music is also bad.”
- “Either no music or it's too quiet.”
- “There's limited music: a sort of sci-fi minimalist track for the menu/title music and a very brief ditty soon after you first start out (going over the first jump), but sound effects are prevalent and good enough that the lack of music is fine.”
replayability
36 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
42%
8%
Trailmakers offers extensive replayability, especially for players who enjoy building, experimenting, and creative sandbox play, with the multiplayer and community aspects adding further longevity. While the campaigns are generally considered short with limited replay value, the open-ended design, mod support, and vehicle customization foster ongoing engagement. Some critique the reliance on paid DLC and server issues affecting multiplayer, but overall the game is praised for its nearly endless replay potential driven by creativity.
- “This game has basically infinite replayability with an amazing dev team and an amazing community.”
- “Overall, Trailmakers has strong replay value and will appeal to players who enjoy building, experimenting, and just messing around.”
- “The campaigns are fun but the sandbox gives so much replayability.”
- “Lacking official dedicated servers really kills the multiplayer part of the game for me, and while the single player campaigns are fun, they don't take long to complete and they don't have any replayability.”
- “The campaign modes have little to no replay value.”
- “Badly optimized game with no replay value.”
emotional
16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
81%
19%
The emotional response to the game is largely positive, with players appreciating the developers' active engagement, consistent updates, and a wholesome community that enhances creativity and enjoyment. While some criticize aspects like tedious gameplay elements and story, many express heartfelt gratitude for the game’s ability to evoke nostalgia and keep their imagination alive. Overall, the emotional connection is strong, driven by the game's fun and welcoming environment.
- “A heartfelt thanks to the developers.”
- “Trailmakers made me feel like a kid again!”
- “This game made me feel good about everything, it enhanced my imagination and kept my creativity awake.”
- “No one wants to harvest rocks, trees, and other tedious resources for hours just to build for boring fetch quests and a dull story.”
- “Janky building mechanics, an overdone and boring story, and a campaign that feels like just finding rocks and pushing to spots to win.”
- “The emotional engagement is low due to monotonous tasks and a lackluster narrative.”
atmosphere
15 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20%
60%
20%
The atmosphere in the game is praised for its vibrant visuals, immersive sound design, and encouraging exploration, creating a captivating and enjoyable environment. However, some users note unrealistic physics related to atmospheric effects, such as exaggerated gravity and heat mechanics, suggesting a need for more accurate atmospheric simulation or customizable atmospheric settings. Overall, the atmosphere contributes significantly to the game's engaging and playful experience despite certain technical inconsistencies.
- “The game’s vibrant art style and intuitive mechanics create an atmosphere that feels both accessible and endlessly deep, making every hour spent in Trailmakers feel like a meaningful blend of play and invention.”
- “The delightful sound effects and music enhance the atmosphere, creating an unforgettable gaming experience that keeps you coming back for more.”
- “The game's graphics and environment design create an atmosphere that encourages exploration.”
- “Acts like you are in a zero-atmosphere environment with gravity adding additional momentum and forces when there shouldn't be, and no effect when there should be.”
- “Built a plane, used it in space, hit the atmosphere of a planet, broke the sound barrier fifteen times over, started tumbling, exploded, and instantly died on impact.”
- “The physics are heavily unrealistic (the atmosphere in this game is about 8x as high as Earth; thrusters are about 4x as powerful).”
character development
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users appreciate the character design and artwork, highlighting the diverse camera angles and the creative freedom allowed in character customization.