You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here
We’re deep in what I like to call the video game summer dead zone, that lull between not-E3 and Gamescom signalling the start of the autumnal release rush, where there’s not much in the shape of big games. It’s a bit worse this year, presumably because most publishers were anticipating a certain Rockstar behemoth to poach all of the attention. If you’re at a loss as to what to play, I’d recommend giving the Scaravan 66 demo a whirl. It’s best described as a vehicular combat rogue-like and a welcome twist on the genre’s obsession with cards, dungeons, and Vampire Survivors copycats.
In Scaravan 66, you play as Lucky, a mouthy petrolhead trying to gun and ram her way through a cavalcade of the Devil’s minions to escape hell. Think werewolves sporting Brillo Cream-swept pompadours a-la-Travolta circa 1978’s Grease. It plays out in runs on an endless tree-lined highway identical to the one where Lucky lost her life.
It’s a long road ahead. Captured by VideoGamer
Scaravan 66 aesthetic is all dinners, psychobilly, and 1950s goodness. Captured by VideoGamer
You can unlock useful upgrades between runs. Captured by VideoGamer
Driving what looks like a Ford De Luxe, you take on waves of quip-spitting enemies using the car and a selection of weapons like a shotgun and rifles to take them out. You aim and shoot with the mouse while guiding the car with the trusty ol’ WASD keys. Along the way, you can take off-ramps to diners to top up on health with apple pie and boost your armour by gobbling down a slice of meatloaf. In typical roguelike fashion, the threat increases the deeper you get into a run, and the latter encounters are thrilling chaos.
It reminds me of Road Rash 3D, that PS1-era relic where you kicked and swung chains at fingernail-sized pixels, though without the racing element, but with a similar punky framing. Scaravan 66 is, however, very much anchored in that evocative 1950s post-war Americana aesthetic – ice cream floats, juke boxes, sticky vinyl booths, garish neon signs, Route 66, and twangy Stratocaster licks – though with a devilish, Psychobilly edge. There’s also some Twisted Metal chucked in as well, if only in how cars vault and explode.
As demos go, this one is pretty generous, bundling in a tutorial and a highway biome you can run through as much as you want. It’s deceptively challenging, so you’ll need a fair few runs to see everything on offer in the demo. You also get access to the meta-progression elements, namely a crusty scrapyard where you can spend collected parts on various upgrades – extra armour, more health, additional lives, faster movement, better weapon damage and accuracy, that kind of thing – to make subsequent runs a tad easier.
If you give the demo a crack and you like it, there shouldn’t be too long to wait to play more. Per the Steam store listing, it’s coming soon, which could mean tomorrow or in a month. Either way, it’s launching in Early Access with a planned 1.0 release before the end of 2025, fleshed out with new enemies, skills, upgrades, and story.
About the Author
