Heading Out Review — Tied By Music And Vibes

As someone who’s been religiously playing racing games since the PS2 era, I feel like the genre’s fundamentals have always stayed the same throughout. It’s a constant cycle of racing, winning, progressing, then more racing. Heading Out piqued my interest the moment I saw it for the first time; it looked unlike anything I’ve seen in the genre, and innovation, especially in this space, is always welcome.

Now, after replaying the campaign several times to beat the game, I can say that racing isn’t even Heading Out’s main highlight. It’s the charm, character, world-building, and most importantly, the vibe of everything around you. It’s core theme lies around “it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey,” which it executes brilliantly.

Story And Setting

Your character, the Interstate Jackalope, is on a journey to escape their past while cruising through the country to take on the best driver in the world. What happened in the past? Well, that depends, but one thing for certain is that it developed Fear, and that fear chases you throughout the game. It’s a relatively simple premise, but Heading Out’s player agency makes the plot more… player-driven.

Right from the get-go, Heading Out tries to tap into the player’s personal lives to try and build a bond with the protagonist. It asks about unforgettable moments like your first love and biggest regret and adds them to the protagonist’s backstory. So, in reality, the Interstate Jackalope is escaping your past because they’re essentially you.

The story isn’t anything complex or award-winning, but the way it’s personalized makes it feel special, and the world around you plays a big role in establishing that intimacy. 

Immerse Yourself And Take Off Into The Sunset

Heading Out’s setting is inspired by the classic 1970s, and it’s not about the biggest cars or tech but about delivering that soothing freedom-esque vibe. Music is a core part of the game, and it’s tailored specifically to the personal questions I mentioned earlier. It’s a joy to listen to, and it’s very easy to get yourself lost in the ambiance.

Heading Out’s setting is inspired by the classic 1970s, and it’s not about the biggest cars or tech but about delivering that soothing freedom-esque vibe.

Radio station hosts have a complete backstory and are full of character and personality. When they talk on the air, they’re not afraid to share their political viewpoints, like you saw in GTA. The setting is Heading Out’s strongest feature since it showcases the personality that most racing games miss today.

Gameplay

Like with its story, Heading Out keeps a simple yet unique gameplay loop that’s stylized beyond belief, combining racing with some visual novel elements. You start off in a Muscle Car and drive from state to state to race off against the best driver in the world. Meanwhile, Fear constantly chases you, and you need to regularly outrun it during your journey.

Going from one state to another has different routes, and each route has different events in it. Successfully completing events often rewards you with cash and affects at least one of these 4 meters: Focus, Wanted, Repair, and Reputation.

Like with its story, Heading Out keeps a simple yet unique gameplay loop that’s stylized beyond belief, combining racing with some visual novel elements.

Focus is basically your stamina, which depletes the more you drive. When it gets too low, you start feeling sleepy and lose consciousness mid-driving. Reputation is how the characters interact with you—a higher reputation means more story choices. Wanted is your police system, which determines how often the police chase and Repair represents the car’s HP.

Unconventional Mechanics Coming Together To Form Intricate Experiences

The events themselves are either story-driven or gameplay-driven. Story-driven events are either choice-based events that test your morality or a monologue of one of the radio hosts. On the other hand, gameplay-driven events can be either races or simple Chill Drives. Chill Drives are personally my favorite—no stress, no worries, just a cool tune as you breeze along the concrete.

When you reach a state, you can spend the cash you earn to replenish your Focus or Repair meter. Be warned, though, since doing either action takes up time, allowing Fear to get closer. If Fear reaches you, you must have a race against it, and if you lose, your run is over.

You primarily travel across states via your map, which shows your meters and how far Fear is away from you. Each act, or session, lasts about an hour and unlocks a new car for you to drive around in. There are three cars to unlock, and you can use them to drive on routes you missed on your last playthrough.

As you can see, the gameplay loop here is unlike anything you’d find in a traditional racing game. Everything’s personalized according to you, which is why Heading Out doesn’t pretend to be competitive. There’s no online multiplayer or co-op, just an engaging Story Mode that captivates you through and through.

Looking Beyond The Bold Moves Reveals Fundamental Problems

However, there are some basic mechanics the game doesn’t properly execute. Heading Out’s physics and controls are extremely wanky, making the driving feel awkward and difficult to control. Even after 4 playthroughs, I was still struggling to make a flawless drift and constantly skidding off the road.

Heading Out’s physics and controls are extremely wanky, making the driving feel awkward and difficult to control.

There’s also the A.I., which is hilariously inconsistent. Even on the highest difficulty, I was effortlessly passing through opponents within the first 30 seconds. It almost seemed like you could win races on accident, which takes away from the thrill of racing. That’s not the worst part, though; the rubber-banding problem is at its peak here.

For those unaware, rubber-banding is a common practice in racing games, which allows the A.I. to easily catch you if it’s too far behind or forces it to stay close if it’s ahead of you. Here, you could be 200 meters ahead of the A.I. for the whole race, and then it suddenly passes mere seconds after you collide with something. 

Coupled with the aforementioned physics, the races didn’t feel as satisfying as I’d hoped. Thankfully, even though Heading Out is a racing game, you don’t often race; instead, you enjoy the freedom of driving aimlessly around the country.

Visuals And Performance

Style is the name of the game, and Heading Out is a perfect example of infusing creativity with simplicity to create visual magic. The game features a comic-book art style with only shades of black, white, yellow, and red. And like Need For Speed: Unbound, it uses comic-like particles and effects to immerse the player further.

The art itself is simply gorgeous with the scenery and roads having great details and crispness. Despite being monotone, everything’s easy to notice and distinguish, which is an impressive feat for this style. For racing games, it may seem unorthodox, but Heading Out’s bold, rich, and classy visuals make it a treat to look at.

Style is the name of the game, and Heading Out is a perfect example of infusing creativity with simplicity to create visual magic.

On the performance side of things, Heading Out stays perfectly stable and playable. While playing on an RTX 3070 and an Intel Core i5-12400f, I never saw any FPS drops, visual bugs, glitches, or any other abnormalities. 

Even when running the game temporarily on a GTX 1660Ti Mobile, which is significantly below the recommended GPU requirements, I was averaging 60+ FPS. So, it’s safe to say that the Serious Sim team properly optimized their title, and any hardware close to the recommended system requirements shouldn’t have any trouble running it.

Verdict

Heading Out is a memorable journey that uses the freedom of driving to help discover your morality and nature. Despite being mostly colorless, this game’s true vibrance lies in its characters, dialogue, vibe, and atmosphere.

It screams passion, creativity, and personality, and if you’re someone who wants to time-travel back to the stylistic ‘70s, this is your ticket. I can almost guarantee you won’t find a racing game that offers an aura or mood quite like this.

This has been my review for Heading Out. While you’re here, consider checking out some of our other recently published reviews:

• Rocket League Review
• Resident Evil Village Review 
• Dragon Ball FighterZ Review 
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