6 days ago
10
Most of the time, life sucks. On rare occasions, however, the moons line up. Having spent a few hours this past weekend playing the Steam Next Fest demo of cosy campervan survivabuilder Outbound, I returned to my desk on Monday and stumbled across a campervan mod for my long-time vice Cyberpunk 2077.
Naturally, I wasn’t going to turn down the chance to compare the experience of driving around the countryside in a mobile home twice.
First of all, get your gilet and many-pocketed trousers out to come with me on a camping trip in Outbound’s demo. Right, there should be a scenic overlook just ahead, so make sure I don’t miss the turn in this de-badged classic Volkswagen hippie bus. Ok, so maybe we’re not in much danger of missing the corner, because the bus can only do five miles an hour and moves like it’s magnetically attracted to the centre of the Earth. That’s fine, though, we’re going camping to relax, not to end up on our roof after failing to resist the urge to floor it through a bumpy field.
Soon, we’ve reached our first campsite. Yes, I’m sure, you can tell because it has a campfire already set up, as well as a suspiciously handy wooden crate of useful supplies that the last folks to pitch up here haven’t cheekily dumped their rubbish in upon leaving. Get the fire going by - oh, you just walk up to it and sacrifice one bit of wood, rather than spending hours rubbing sticks together. Ok, time to walk around the quite pleasant natural backdrops nearby and gather up some crafting resources that’ve been left lying around. Here’s some wood, scrap metal, and rubbish to recycle.
Feed that latter into this recycling machine I’ve just built inside our van, and boom, a ticket that’ll give me the blueprint for a handy new skill if I take it to that radio tower over there. No, I’m not sure why all of the local telecommunications posts are dishing out info about making axes and watering cans to hapless campers, but I’m sure it’s for the greater good. Speaking of axes, I’m going to use the one I’ve just made on some logs, so we can go from desperately needing more wood to having so much wood we have to shove it all in the van’s maw in order to avoid being rooted to the ground. Right, time to move on and see if we can climb up to that hilltop ranger station. What do you mean ‘give me five minutes, I’ve just built a three-legged camping stool’?
Right, up the hill we go. Oh, the inside of this ranger station is rather cosily decorated. There’s plenty of food and water too. The view from the rooftop balcony’s very nice. Can we just chill out he- No, sorry, you’re right, we’re campervanning. Help me find the floppy disk, pen drive, and password cipher I need to break into this PC. Look, I know it seems like someone lives here, but they've left all these things lying around in plain sight. Right, I’m in. Oh, all that’s on their hard drive is more advice on how to make stuff using the workbench we’ve shoved in our van’s boot. Handy. Yes, let’s get out of here before they get back and call the police.
If you don’t mind, I’m going to build a remarkably compact sawmill to turn some of this wood into logs so I can single-handedly repair that utterly decimated bridge over the river. Don’t worry, it makes no mess at all in splitting these bits of wood apart. While I’m doing that, can you feed this ginger I picked up into the van’s motor. It’s electric, you see, and the battery’s low on random natural gubbins to munch for power. Now, let’s trundle on to the next point of interest on the map. Oh, that is a nice gnome you’ve collected. Wait. That’s a big treehouse up ahead. Up we go, time to break into their PC. Look, I doubt it’s that treehouse. It is a nice treehouse, though.
Screw it, I’m just gonna spend my holiday here. Yes, I know I’m supposed to be helping you build a small flat with a greenhouse atop our campervan, one that seems like it’d be logistically impossible without squishing the suspension into egg mayonnaise. I know, you want fifteen floors, crafting stations galore, and enough chairs to seat a small nation. I’m comfy here for now, though. Maybe I’ll get around to more building on our next trip.
Oh, I meant to mention: if you don’t mind, we’re going to set off on our next campervanning trip right now. I’m also inviting along the techno-ghost of a long dead rock singer who can’t go two sentences without saying the words ‘fuck’ and ‘corpo’. Ok, ok, I know roaming the desert badlands surrounding a futuristic dystopian city with such a bloke might not sound as pastorally nourishing as our vacay in Outbound, but I really fancy trying out ‘R.A. Militech Behemoth Mobile Living Conversion - Own a housetruck’, which modder Dederara released very recently.
Now, it’s going to cut into our savings a little bit, because the square military lorry the mod converts into a motorhome - AKA an RV - costs no less than 145,000 eddies. Yes, that’s more than the 110,000 eddies the base game’s swankiest apartment costs to rent, but remember: this is both a house and a car we’re buying. Anyway, I’ve already paid, so it should pull up soo-speak of the devil. It’s a lot bigger and chunkier than Outbound’s retro ride, though given what Night City’s like, I feel a lot safer knowing my new digs are attached to a beefy Kaukaz chassis.
Let’s check out those digs, shall we? Ah, yes, they warned me that we’ll have to phase through a loading screen every time we want to enter the living space that lurks within the truck’s trailer. Sadly, that means no sitting in our quarters and gazing out at the night sky. On the other hand, the brochure says that whenever you enter or exit the tailgate, the entire truck resets itself, instantly repairing any damage it’s suffered in an instant. Handy, especially given Cyberpunk’s autodriving tech is still occasionally prone to sudden boneheaded crashes.
What do you mean these living quarters are a bit cramped? Fine, I’ll grant you that it’s a good job neither of us are over six foot three, or as wide as a rugby player. Also, make sure you’re careful which button you press when changing radio stations on the stereo, or you might accidentally warp outside without meaning to. Oh, and you’ll probably have to wear a helmet to bed if you want to make sure you don’t clonk your head against the back wall. Aside from that, though, we’ve got everything we could ever need. A gear stash, a wardrobe, a laptop, a vending machine with a never-ending supply of futuristic burritos. Sure, there’s no shower, bath, or toilet as far as I can tell, but we’re camping. I’m sure we’ll find plenty of nice rivers to bathe in as we tour the arid Californian climes surrounding a city that generates literal mountains of trash and dumps them right outside.
Right, come on. Let’s hit the road. You see, the Behemoth drives nice and smoothly, with the option to fork over control to the autodriver if I want to put my feet up, or need to clumsily unfold a big ordnance survey map. It’ll even do up to 100mph if we need to make sure we get parked somewhere before a deluge of other tourists descends. How are you finding the ride? Wait, what do you mean you’d prefer it if Keanu Reeves wasn’t sitting in your lap. I’ll have you know a lot of people would pay good money for that. Yes, he smells like the inside of an Arasaka science lab and he won’t stop droning on about his metaphysical plight. Look, just pretend he’s a moody Yorkshire Terrier we’ve adopted.
The good news is that the Badlands do have plenty of scenic spots that make for nice campsites. We can start off by heading deep into the desert and parking up a ridge for some sunbathing with a nice view of some wind turbines. Then we can stop off in a highway layby for a quick snack on the way back to the city. There are lovely views of the sprawling metropolis from atop the Coronado Dam. Then, we can finish up by driving into Pacifica and pulling up on the beach for some drinks. If we’re lucky, we might avoid accidentally driving into any firefights between cybernetically-enhanced psychopaths. Oh, and if you’ve remembered to pack some other mods, principally TV Anywhere and Computer Anywhere, we’ll have plenty of entertainment.
Then, when we get home, we can go on that travel review site and dedicate 10,000 words per entry to our thoughts on each of these campervanning holidays. Personally, I got a kick out of both, even if they offer different pros and cons. Outbound is probably more along the lines of what you'd expect from a van life sim, and I do dig its chill vibes and building mechanics. Still, Cybercampervanning is for the true campervanners. The ones who want to find a new way to appreciate an exhaustively detailed RPG worldspace they already thought they’d seen every nook and cranny of.
What do you mean you’re giving both of them two stars because you had to spend the entire time listening to your dickhead holiday mate chunter on?
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