Review

Is Nomad Drive fun solo?

By George In The Meta · 26 Oct 2026

Not for me, not yet. I played the Nomad Drive demo on my own the day before its Early Access launch, and it's a very, very slow burn. RV There Yet, even solo, was better than this. It was just tightly made, and there was a point. So no, I don't think I'd be buying Nomad Drive on launch day.

What is Nomad Drive?

Nomad Drive is a survival game where you repair a rundown RV and drive it through a procedurally generated post-apocalyptic world, solo or in 1 to 4 player co-op. You gather resources, cook, fish, grow food from seeds and customise the van. It's by Indie Devil, and it comes out in Early Access on 27 October 2026 (Steam).

I played the v1.4 demo in single player, on normal difficulty with everything left at 100, on the seed leet1337.

What's building the van like in Nomad Drive?

It gives you a real slow start. You start at a homestead in a barren bit of desert, with what looks like the body of a VW that has nothing on it, and there's a good amount of pieces you need to connect before you've actually got a working vehicle.

Whose car is broken this way, that all the stuff is inside the house? I mean, I get it's a game, but it seems weird. I'm about to carry a whole engine out of a house by myself. I am an absolute unit. The amount you slow down when you're picking up one of the large bits is annoying, and the yellow marker that shows you where a part attaches is just too small. It makes more sense with the sound on.

I think this could fundamentally get kind of annoying with the amount of stuff I have to pick up and carry. I guess that's one of the things that's going on: your tolerance of the monotonous. I do like what we are doing, though. It is taking a while, and I can see why you'd like to play it with friends if you wanted to get going sooner.

Is the grinding and polishing any good?

It's kind of got the Power Wash Simulator thing going on, although way jankier, especially near the windows. Your grinder just goes through the window, and it's almost as if there's no glass in them. It's not hard because it's difficult, it's hard because it's badly made.

The grinder ran out of battery before I'd finished, and the polish is really hard to see if it's doing anything. I polished one side and couldn't be arsed with the rest. The spray paint is just as annoying as the grinder, slipping between the wheels, but I did paint it white.

How does Nomad Drive handle?

The Ural in WARDOGS handles nicely; this is way, I don't know, bouncy. I don't feel like I'm driving a VW, or whatever legally distinct thing they have that isn't a VW. I'm going a hundred and it doesn't feel like it. It feels real bouncy, real floppy.

Is there anything to do once you're driving?

Not much, yet. I can see why they've started you in a desert: they don't need to have anything around you. The main objective is to discover your first location, but you can go anywhere you want, which is cool, but what am I looking for? I drove for maybe five minutes and saw nothing.

The problem with generated maps is there's potentially no point for a while. Minecraft survives on it because of what you can do in the world. You're there, you're crafting and all of this. In Nomad Drive, you're just driving about. RV There Yet had a destination and a route. The bus stop I found had all that stuff and was cool, but I hadn't found any reason why I cared or needed it.

It didn't feel like there was any pressure either. What was the fail state? I just stopped driving. I assume it would be that I run out of fuel and have none left, and then I look around me into the expanse that is the desert and think, okay, I don't want to keep going.

A sandstorm did come through. I was somehow flying in the air, landed, and my door came off. Then I had an objective to patch myself up, so maybe that was meant to happen.

Where is the coolant in Nomad Drive?

In the demo, there's coolant with the parts at the homestead, but all the coolant I could find only filled the radiator to 38%. I'm not sure how you complete that side objective, or if you just have to wait. I didn't find any spray paint at the homestead either; it was at the bus stop.

Can you cook in Nomad Drive?

Yes, but I couldn't work out how. The cooking objective says to attach food to a pan, and I had the beans in my hand with nothing telling me how to attach them. Then he just ate all the beans. Okay, that's annoying. This is already starting to feel incredibly janky, and not in a terrific way.

Is Nomad Drive better than RV There Yet?

No. RV There Yet was only fun with another person, so I wanted to see if Nomad Drive could carry itself without one. RV There Yet with a mate, or even RV There Yet solo, was better than this. It was tightly made, and you're going through a set sequence, so there's a point to the drive.

I've got 10.3 hours in RV There Yet. It's a co-op game about driving your RV home, out since 21 October 2025 at $7.99 (Steam).

Nomad Drive might be better with people. I guess it probably would be, and I think it could be an interesting streaming game. There's an engine repair kit and a charger for the battery, so this might have some depth to it. It's just a very, very slow burn.

Nomad Drive at a glance