The Crew Franchise Expands With Third Installment: Badlands
Imagine a cartoonish version of Mad Max: Fury Road and it’s pretty much what Badlands Crew, the third installment in the franchise by developer Runner Duck, looks like. The game released on April 28, 2025 for PC, with future plans for console players down the road. According to the studio, this is their most ambitious entry to the games’ series to date.
The prior titles, Bomber Crew (2017) and Space Crew: Legendary Edition (2020) were both well-received by players who enjoy crew management type of games. Each game comes with different kinds of missions that need to be navigated, utilizing the strengths and weaknesses of the individual members of the crew.
“We’ve completely reimagined what a Crew game can be,” said Jon Wingrove, Co-Founder of Runner Duck, in a press release. “Badlands Crew is bigger, bolder, and more tactical than anything we’ve done before, and we can’t wait for players to hit the road.”
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Protecting The Citadel From The Orator
As the protagonist, it’s up to the player to keep the Citadel safe. It’s the last vestige of human survivors. Resources must be obtained beyond the walls of refuge, out in the Badlands, where the Orator and his hordes of raiding followers rule the landscape, though other groups of savages and lethal factions have been spotted.
Fortunately, there’s a customizable battle wagon to get the job done. If flamethrowers can’t get the job done, try sniper turrets. Injured crew members can be sent to the medical station and put right back into action.
The truck can only carry so much weight, so it’ll be important to keep it balanced. Heavy turrets will slow it down and make it handle like a drunk elephant, while a leaner build with snipers keeps it going at a decent pace.
Of course, no battle wagon is complete without looking like the baddest war machine this side of the wasteland. A few stickers and a fierce paintjob will make sure it stands out. Most parts can be individually smeared with colors, jointly conveying a simple message: “Mess with me and I’ll blow you up.”
Get Your Crew Ready For The Apocalyptic Wasteland
Crew members can be recruited from survivors or inside the Citadel. They will have to be trained and outfitted with the best possible equipment to survive those missions where the Orator’s raiders won’t leave the decked out juggernaut alone.
Each crew member has a job to do and they can get better at it. The driver won’t drive the truck like he stole it in GTA 5, the medical team will heal faster, the gunners will be more accurate, and so on.
Managing the team while under fire, or on fire, for that matter, is quite hectic. Multi-tasking like driving and shooting simultaneously is not easy. Until players get a hang of it, most projectiles will end up pretty much everywhere except on the target.
The environment is dynamic and choices made will influence the overall landscape of the Badlands and the four enemy factions out there: Gun Nutz, Pyros, Vultures, and Klowns. Still, they aren’t the only threat out there. Someone from the dev team must have seen Dune and decided that gun battles aren’t enough in Badlands: Crews – not when there’s room for giant sandworms to make life just a little bit harder.
About Runner Duck And Curve Games
Runner Duck is a small UK-based indie studio that follows the formula of being formed by a crew of industry veterans from larger studios and publishers. The company’s signature is games that rely on strategy and management with a blend of simulation, permadeath, and tactical real-time decisions.
Teaming up with Curve Games again to deliver Badlands: Crew, a publisher that specializes in bringing indie studios’ creations to market, Runner Duck games have a very stylized art which is clean and charming.
Their partnership began with Bomber Crew, which became a surprise hit when it was released and still enjoys a small but loyal following. The follow-up, Space Crew: Legendary Edition, has close to 15k followers on SteamDB since March, 2024.
