Hey everyone. Ben here. I wanted to share a behind-the-scenes update on something I’ve been spending a lot of time on recently: a completely new drifting model for the game.
After listening to feedback from players here on Patreon, over on the Discord server and elsewhere, it was clear that the drift system in Wreckreation needed some more work. This post covers what wasn’t working, what I wanted instead, how I’ve been making those changes and where things are at so far.
This really is behind the scenes so please do not share the information and videos you'll find below.
Limitations of the Existing Drift System
The short version is that the old drift system works, but it doesn’t feel good enough, and it doesn’t give players the level of control they expect.
The most commonly-reported issue (and one I agree with) is that it feels very hard to meaningfully change the angle or radius of a drift once you’re in it. A lot of players describe feeling like the car is “on rails”, or that the game is deciding the drift for them rather than responding to what they’re doing with the controls.
On top of that, there are some bugs where the car can occasionally get yanked sideways in a way that feels abrupt and unnatural. I’ve seen players describe this as the car being “pushed around by magnets”, which, while not technically accurate, is a pretty good description of how it feels from the driver’s seat.
Input response has also been a problem. Counter-steering and braking, in particular, either do too little or do something extreme (like instantly cancelling the drift), with very little in between. Boost is another big one: players quite reasonably expect that boosting while drifting should speed the car up, just like it does when driving normally.
All of this adds up to a drift experience that can feel restrictive, unpredictable in the wrong ways, and disconnected from player intent.
Goals for this Revised Drift System
Going into this, my main goal was simple: the car should do what the player is trying to make it do.
Steering input should matter. Steering in should make the car rotate more and tighten the drift radius, letting you turn more sharply. Steering out should straighten the car up gradually - not instantly like before - giving you a longer, shallower drift that you can actually hold and adjust.
Crucially, balancing those inputs should let you tighten and loosen the drift at will. That means hitting multiple apexes through a corner, adjusting your line mid-drift, or dodging traffic without the drift falling apart.
Braking, throttle, and boost should all behave intuitively as well. They should slow the car down or speed it up, and that change in speed should naturally affect how tight the drift is and how sideways the car gets. Boosting mid-drift should feel powerful, risky, and useful (not impossible!)
On the “what I don’t want” side: no more magnetic forces, no more sudden jerks across the road after a small input, and no more hard-coded drift circle that dictates where the car tries to go regardless of the vehicle you’re driving. The handling needs to be physics-based and vary per car, not baked into a single one-size-fits-all solution.
My Process So Far
Rather than trying to patch the old system, I’ve treated this as a ground-up rethink of how drifting works.
The biggest change is that the drift is no longer based around forcing the car to follow a predefined arc. Instead, the car’s rotation, speed, and grip are driven directly by steering angle, tyre slip, and weight transfer. That gives me a much more solid foundation to build on, and it immediately removes a lot of the “fighting the system” feeling.
From there, I’ve been iterating heavily on input response. Small changes to how steering affects slip angle can completely change how controllable the car feels, so a lot of this work has been test, drive, tweak, repeat - sometimes for hours on the same stretch of road.
I’ve also spent time deliberately stress-testing edge cases: aggressive counter-steer, braking mid-drift, boosting at awkward moments, transitioning between multiple drifts, and so on. A big focus has been making sure changes are smooth and predictable, even when you’re doing something messy.
How This Matches My Own Expectations So Far
Honestly, this is the happiest I have felt with a drifting system in Wreckreation.
I can now widen or tighten a drift reliably just by adjusting steering, and the car responds in a way that makes sense. Long, shallow drifts on faster roads are possible, but so are tight, technical slides through complex corners. Braking actually slows the car down during a drift, and boost does what you’d expect: it makes everything faster, wider, and more intense.
Most importantly, the car feels like it has weight again. Movements are smoother, the “magnetic” behaviour is gone, and when something goes wrong it usually feels like my fault, not the system’s.
There’s still tuning to do, and I’m sure there are edge cases I haven’t hit yet, but the core behaviour is solid in a way the old system never quite was.
Video: Work in Progress
I’ve put together a few short clips to show the new drift system in action on one of our most varied and tricky roads (Gabriels Descent/Red Rain Pass). Hopefully these will let me show you how much adjustment is possible mid-drift and how the car behaves under different inputs.
The first clip shows a nice long, shallow drift around the satellite dishes at the top of Red Rain, something that was virtually impossible with the old drift system.
The next one shows some transitions between multiple drifts. You could sort of do this before, but it feels a lot more natural now.
Finally, we just have a high speed run through some tunnels and hairpins up Gabriels Descent, showing how the car reacts to steering to rotate more through the tighter turns, and less through the wider ones further up the mountain.
This is still very much work-in-progress footage, but it should give you a good idea of the direction things are heading.
Next Steps
The next step is to get this new drifting model into your hands, and we’ll have an update on that very soon.
Crucially, this new system will sit alongside the existing drift behaviour - it will not replace it. You’ll be able to switch freely between the two and decide which you prefer.
This is an important point for me - While I personally prefer the new, more physically-driven system, I know that some players genuinely enjoy the current drift behaviour, and I don't want to take that away from anyone. Keeping both systems available lets us support different play styles without forcing a single “correct” way to drive.
Very soon (hopefully before the end of this week), our Patreon members will be able to enable the new drift system through the DJ Menu - we will roll this out in Tiers starting with Point of Impact and above. We are starting with a relatively small sample while we gather initial feedback.
As we promised when we started this Patreon, this is about giving you all the opportunity to help shape changes like this before they become real.
During this early-access phase, my main goal is feedback. I want to know:
how the new system feels compared to the existing one
where it meets your expectations and where it falls short
what you would change or refine if you had the chance
Your feedback will directly influence how far this system is taken and how it is tuned going forward. Nothing here is locked in, and this is exactly the stage where your input is most valuable.