Review: THE OREGON TRAIL is a faithful recreation of a classic PC game

Towards the end of 2022, Gameloft exited The Oregon Trail on PC (via Steam) and Nintendo Switch. The game is a modern revival of the classic PC game that made dysentery famous. I have fond memories of playing the original game on my friend’s computer and Gameloft was very kind to give me a key to review the game on PC. All thoughts are mine.

A modern twist on the trials and tribulations of the road to Oregon, this official successor to the global phenomenon will immerse players in exhilarating journeys that range from historically accurate to totally extreme. Players will choose their travel party, replenish their supply wagon, and embark on an adventure filled with difficult choices, new dangers, and unexpected situations.

The Oregon Trail is a fun and challenging game where you are tasked with helping a group of four settlers move west across the United States along the famous trail. Your characters will have many problems like broken bones, disease and more. However, they will also have many adventures with hunting, fishing and meeting some interesting characters along the way. What makes the game really tricky is that you have a timer as your crew has to get to Oregon before winter. Oh and your inventory management is crucial and a puzzle of its own and this is changed as your tank gets damaged along the way.

The 2022 version has fun pixel art graphics for the characters and animals that help it keep some of that retro vibe while still being a modern game. It also features achievements, XP earned by clicking on animals as your party travels, different visual filters, side stories, and more. I also want to point out that Gameloft has done its best to ensure that all people represented do so in a respectful manner.

All the new features really help give the game a new lease of life while retaining the core of the original. My favorite thing about the game though is the music. It’s just relaxing music, great for studying. Most of it is that western/country acoustic guitar with a little added vibe and some 8-bit sounds thrown in. It all works great and you can even stream it on Spotify.

I don’t have too many criticisms about it The Oregon Trail Honestly. My biggest really is the fact that after hunting you can skin the animals you kill, but you can’t have all the meat/hides unless you complete one of the side adventures to get a knife. A KNIFE! If it needed to unlock a skill or something more meta, that would have been fine. But imagining that none of these characters would have a knife bothers me.

Another complaint is that hunting feels clunky. I wish it would shoot where your cursor was instead of just the direction your character is facing. My last little gripe is that you don’t know your people’s stats until you use a specific skill. On the one hand, this is nice because it adds a little surprise because you never know how well your team will perform. However, it is also annoying to have to bet so much on skill tests, especially at the beginning. To help make this even less of a problem, there are items you can obtain and use to reveal character stats.

At the end of the day, if you liked The Oregon Trail or you’ve always wanted to experience the classic game, this updated version is definitely worth grabbing. It only costs $29.99 which is pretty good and if you can find it on sale, even better. You revisited The Oregon Trail?