Camping is great in theory, but not so much in reality. The itchy grass and leaves, vulnerability to the elements, and a dirt bedroom…and bathroom. I would much rather play video games about camping. Luckily, Outbound lets you traverse the great outdoors without digging a hole for the bathroom – just one thing that makes it such a joy ride.

Square Glade Games takes you on a campervan road trip through wilderness forests, grasslands, rocky canyons, sandy beaches. Here driving sim, walking sim, and open-world intersect for a trip that’s every bit as compelling as it is relaxing, although it’s not without bumps.

On your journey you collect materials like wood and scrap metal to upgrade your van or repair bridges and roads leading to uncharted territory. Later on you get a dog, too, a good boi or girl who’s useful for the journey (but, more importantly, cute!). You find campfires to light, cabins to explore, and satellite towers to download crafting instructions. An hour in and you’re already loaded up on materials and missions.

And once you think you’re nearing the end of things, you unlock new areas and new maps to discover. As the road gets even more open before you, you realise this world is much bigger than you thought – and that makes it even more fun.

There may be lengthy stretches of road, but Outbound packs a lot in and it’s hard to tire of the many activities. In fact, I was often at a crossroads (literally and proverbially) choosing between doing one task or another, left to a building or right to a satellite tower, this light puzzle or that bridge repair. Almost everything is interesting to scour and satisfying to tick off. Oh, and there’s a bunch of collectibles scattered about. It will all feel like well-trodden ground for Spiritfarer or Disney Dreamlight Valley fans.

Crafting is done in two different ways. Van and tool upgrades are done via a minigame where you tap ‘A’ every time a cursor hits a green bar. Meanwhile, you make materials and food with machines in a set-and-forget mechanic similar to Spiritfarer: pop raw items in and leave them for a time. When you come back to the machine, your wood planks/metal/bread are ready. As the game progresses you get more of these machines, and you’ll be crafting things in one then taking them to input in another.

You can play co-op, too, except it’s online only. I didn’t get to test it, but if it’s anything like the demo, you can have up to four people riding around in a single van, sharing machines and a common goal as you craft, cook and adventure together. Cue arguments about who gets to take the wheel.

With Outbound’s setting, it naturally comes with a strong environmental message – the wind farms, picking up dead wood (not chopping trees), collecting trash to recycle, natural resources for fuel. Among all the horrors in the world, this game’s utopian vision for the future is a gentle shred of optimism.

You’ve got three health bars: fuel for the car, hunger, and health. The car runs on basic plant-based items which are easy to come by (if only). You keep yourself fuelled by eating forageable food, as your avatar seems to be satiated by berries and mushrooms alone. If you don’t eat, your hunger gauge runs out and begins chipping away at your health gauge. Your health is also affected by walking too close to campfires or jumping off high cliffs. If it runs out, you faint and wake up the next day. It’s as close as you get to ‘dying’.

There are features closer to reality, though. You can’t run if your backpack is too full or it’s too late at night. Likewise, the car slows down when there are too many items in the trunk. This is kind of freeing, in a sense. Rather than limiting your inventory, Outbound says, “Carry as much as you want, but it’ll slow you down.” Your dog can help you here, too, as they have their own backpack and can obediently stay by the car or follow you.

As much as you’re on an outdoor adventure, your campervan was not made for off-road driving. Any time I drove off the beaten path, I struggled to right the van. There’s an ‘unstuck’ option which puts you and your car back on the straight and narrow, thankfully – I ended up using it a lot.

I can’t help comparing Outbound to Firewatch based on its art style (which I’ll park for a tick). For that reason, I noticed it lacked the same compelling and emotional story. There are vague signs of other life in this world: cabins, notes, half-eaten food, and drying laundry. While these look like environmental storytelling, whatever story they’re telling feels like it stalled.

Customisation is decent, though not executed in the best way. Your van is a blank canvas (van-vas?) you’ll paint with items for appearances and application. I found the first-person view a little fidgety for this and sometimes it took a few taps of the analogue stick to lock onto the object I wanted. The Switch 2’s mouse function might have been useful here but alas, it’s not available. Although these little nuts and bolts weren’t dealbreakers for me, they didn’t make for a perfectly smooth ride.

Outbound runs nicely enough on Switch 2; I didn’t come across any stuttery frame rates or laggy load times. However, the visuals aren’t always crystal clear, and background objects like trees and rocks don’t appear until you get closer to them.

That brings us back to the aforementioned art style. The colour palette is lovely: midday skies of crisp blue melt to warm yellows and soft pinks as the day passes. Grasses mix different shades of green with husky yellows, red and browns. The hues can get oversaturated at night or during bad weather, though, and the details are hard to make out – especially in handheld mode.

Same goes with the audio. As with nature itself, the game is pretty quiet, accessorised with birds chirping, leaves rustling, and weather-appropriate sounds of rain, thunder, and wind. There are some nice-enough lilting piano tunes, but they are inconsistent and the silences in the empty woods turn from serene to eerie, giving Outbound the ambience of a different game. Sound effects for rewards are also sparse, reserved more for non-essential collectibles than structural repairs (which is when I really craved them).

While I would have loved to give Outbound a higher score, the lack of story and the fiddly customisation made me pump the brakes. I will say this, though: I don’t often play review games after I finish the article, but by the time you read this, I’ll probably be back in my campervan.