So is the game really one big map, or multiple regional maps?

[icMonkey308]

After a few hours playing free roam, I came to some boundaries that would prevent me going any further. Firstly starting at the Jeddah spawn point I headed south west towards the coast and headed towards the city. As the skyline of skyscrapers closed in I was suddenly presented with a 15 second countdown timer with the message "Too far away. Disqualification In:"

I also got this message and countdown again after collecting the final treasure in the Neom region when heading towards the city of Tabuk. This makes me think that the game is actually multiple regional maps and it is not possible to drive across multiple regions.

[Frey]

fake freeroam ? nice to hear that

[ScouseSeattle]

I didn't expect cities to be modeled, if thats all it is.

[PieceKeeper]

On the map selection screen everything that isn't obscured by clouds is contiguous and driveable.

Made the trip from Red Sea to Neom on the highway.

The thing is, your location or treasures will not refresh/upate.

[amsterDan]

I was not able to drive into Tabuk from any of the surrounding areas either. I'm pretty sure the different zones of the map are not connected at all, which might be why you can't access a map while free roaming, since that map would reveal where the edges of the zones are. The suddenly-appearing disqualification countdown rained on my parade several times yesterday.

[Kuolema]

It's just a trasure hunt mode that extends playtime while giving almost no rewards at the end

[Frey]

ok, fake freeroam, NO BUY thanks for that

[E4GLEyE]

It seems to be indeed sections, honestly my main focus is on the races, but freeroam is super fun too. Just spent 2 hours in one of these zones, figuring out how to climb a few mountains from clearly the wrong way and then driving on the dunes till the sun set. Loving every bit of it, technical limitations be damned, this mode is a nice icing on an already sweet cake in my opinion.

[PieceKeeper]

Some open parts of the map are indeed gigantic. The thing is even though there is most definitely 20 000 square kilometers of driveable terrain, the map itself is not shaped like a square so if you look at the map screen :

https://traxion.gg/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Dakar-Desert-Rally-Free-Roam.jpg

Wherever there is clouds is going to be timer countdown, so if you don't hit any of these spots you are free to drive wherever you want, so some of the open regions are indeed massive.

I can confirm without any doubt that I traveled from Red Sea to Neom on the highway because I started from Red Sea and headed North all the way to the timer and saw many buildings, landmarks, etc, then did the same trip in reverse, so starting from Neom heading south on the same highway and saw the same landmarks. The whole trip is about 250 km. There is a big airport on the way there.

Here is the catch : The game does NOT update your location dynamically at the top left OR refresh the position of nearby treasures as you switch "regions" so even though I was way up north in Neom, my location was still "red sea."

Tonight I'm going to drive Red Sea - Neom - Tabuk using paved highway intersections as landmarks to figure myself out. Should be interesting.

[amsterDan]

After some experimenting, it definitely is not only the clouded areas of the map that are off-limits. Go to the Tabuk start point and immediately head due east in the direction of Ha'il. On the map, it is open cloudless sand, and yet you can only go about 20km from the start point before you are disqualified.

[laker01]

Wow, thanks for this info. I was thinking about picking it up on sale but that's very disappointing, no buy for me.

[Simfan 2018]

Free roam is -also- being able to select a starting point or area.
This is what has now been achieved.
Writing stuff like ... disappointment, fake ... only means people never intended to buy this title in the first place. The kind of "constructive, honest ..." feedback became the new dubious standard all over steam forums.
If I were to believe all reviews of games stating those are "bad, dead, buggy, worthless ..." Steam and all game Devs would have filed for bankrupcy by now :-)
IMHO(!) this is a remarkable sim/game ... regardless of free roam or ... not !

[icMonkey308]

IMO There needs to be some kind of visibility to the boundary, Today I hit the boundary while taking big air and was unable to turn away from the off limits area in time

[Simfan 2018]

"There needs to be some kind of visibility to the boundary, "
That would be a very good idea.
But maybe the Devs are afraid ... to then be spammed with and immense number of "this-is-no-free-roam" feedback threads ?

[pizza7]

Originally posted by -KolysioN™:

ok, fake freeroam, NO BUY thanks for that

ok fake gamer , byeeeess