Heading Out Review: Choosing the Journey, not the Destination

With a crimson sky overhead and an almost supernatural sense of fear at your back, Heading Out puts players in the seat of a runaway on the open. It’s the player, their car and the open road. As players drive across the United States, the world takes notice and responds to players’ action. And despite having a clear goal in mind, nobody knows where’s the destination, not even the players.

Heading Out Review – Choosing the Journey not the Destination

Hitting the Road Hard (The good)

Heading Out is a driving game inspired by cult classic road movies that accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do. Players assume the role of a former racer nicknamed “The Interstate Jackalope” as they venture across the United States seeking answers to questions they did not know they had. The story is player driven (pun intended), allowing players to make choice from what propels their character forward, to more long term decisions that affect the 5 Act campaign.

Each Act presents the player with a specific destination and a motivation to get there. How players get there and what trouble they get into along the way is up to them. For this review, I’ll avoid spoilers as the destinations hint at pivotal story elements everyone should experience for themselves. However, I will note, each choice made by player will affect the game somehow. Some choices are far more important than others- completely changing an arc for better or for worse. While some simply increase one of four player-managed traits: reputation, focus, wanted level, and car condition.

As the game progresses, players should expect these manageables to impact what choices are available to them. This includes what routes to take as well as whether or not they can afford to sleep at the nearest inn. Players must be conscious of all this while also outrunning an almost supernatural sense of fear encroaching on the protagonist’s mind.

Gameplay

It’s a car game. Players drive. Heading Out does not break new ground in the sense of car-focus gameplay. However, that is not to say it is not good. In a smart design move, Serious Sim uses an industry standard control scheme racing games. If you played an number of racing arcade games, then Heading Out will feel very familiar. Given how, for lack of a better term, “simplistic” the game loop is, I’d like to have seen more elements to the driving- but more on that later.

The core of Heading Out’s gameplay takes place in sprint still races. Once a race starts, player work to overtake their opponent and remain in the lead until the soundtrack ends or specific objective is met. This makes detours in the game a player’s best friend and almost a most on higher levels of play. Detours are shortcuts in Heading Out. These take players off the beaten path and cut through various portions of the standard track- tracks being the open road of whichever city the player is currently in. As additional Acts are cleared, new race types added into the mix, making each Act more complex than the last.

From Point A to B

Complementary to the on-the-road action is the map screen. More than just a “choose the next destination screen”,  Heading Out uses the game’s map menu to add an extra rogue-like layer to the game. In addition to choosing the next leg of their journey, players will need to manage their speed along the interstate routes, being mindful of their character’s:

• Focus – think of this like fatigue. In order to drive, players must remain awake. Sleeping, coffee, and a host of items and choices help keeps this high.
• Condition – Vehicle condition. Collisions and poor driving as well as story beats can take a toll on the vehicle. Players need to keep their car in good condition to make it through to the final Act.
• Speed – speeding costs you money, quite literally in fact. Players can choose to traverse the interstate at high speeds but this also raises the cost of gas they’ll need to pay once reaching the next city.
• Wanted – the journey isn’t street legal. Cops can cost players valuable time, making races and staying ahead of their fear a difficult feat.
• Money – Players earn cash through odd jobs, but mostly racing. While it can be earned in many ways, it can be lost too. In addition to gas, room and board, story moment can see player cash dwindle in an instant.
• Reputation – for better or worse, players have a rep to manage. Consider this “the Legend of the Interstate Jackalope”. how the world responds to the player as well as how situations play comes down to the player’s reputation.

My favorite part of the game may actually being traversing the map and seeing what trouble I can get into. Having to manage these bits is a nice reprieve from the back to racing while all still progressing the narrative of Heading Out.

Trouble along the Journey (The not so good)

Heading out does a lot of this right and very few wrong, if at all. That said, police chases can be a portion of the game where things fall apart. Being a major part of the game, one can see where that might be problematic. This is not to say avoid them at all cost. However, by the time I entered into Act III, they had yet to feel radically different that the standard sprint against other drivers. I also noticed taking the chase off-road is often the simplest way (detours) to evade them. After taking a major collision off-road, cops sped right past me then stopped, waiting for me to return to the road before giving chase again rather than making the arrest. Still, this by no means detracts from the overall experience that is Heading Out.

Reaching the Final Destination (And the Verdict)

Heading Out is a fantastic blend of narrative fiction, social and political satire paired with rogue-like elements then poured into an arcade racer. Beneath its comedic bits, stylish presentation, and general chaos lies deep undertones of a very mature storytelling. The feeling of wanting more from Heading Out does not come from the game lacking. Rather it is easy to imagine more being added to the experience. Some may not like the pacing, preferring more races over story moments. However, I believe Heading Out balances this quite nicely for a very enjoyable experience. Each Act takes roughly an hour to complete. This makes it easy to get through multiple playthroughs to experience all of what Heading Out has to offer. for those into driving and storytelling, this is a must-play.

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