# DETOUR: Build Roads and Race Your Rivals

Guide truck convoys across a shifting map in online matches for up to four players, with free-for-all and team-versus modes built around roads, resources, and sabotage.

[PLAYNEXT](https://playnext.party/) · Published: 10/2/2026

![Blue and red truck routes cross a city map as convoys approach their destinations in DETOUR.](https://playnext.party/steam-images/45a474bf-1bb2-4d8e-9584-7f01e121bf92/ss-30eee8fc59fbf059446799717f1de7e554509886?width=1200)

DETOUR gives you and your friends a small construction company, a convoy of trucks, and a map full of ways to ruin each other’s schedules. Its online matches support up to four players. You can race as rivals in a free-for-all or join a team-versus match, where your side works together against the other company. This is a competitive strategy game with teamwork inside its team mode, not a campaign where everyone fights a common enemy.

The goal is to get enough trucks from your factory to the far side of the map before the other side does. You draw roads across the terrain, spend credits on vehicles and tools, then watch the trucks follow the routes you laid out. A match is less about steering a vehicle and more about planning a supply route while other players build, block, and attack at the same time.


## A route is a plan and a border

Each company begins with a factory and a goal on the opposite side of the board. A truck needs a continuous road to travel, so you lay a path over open ground and around whatever interrupts it. Road placement claims terrain and can block an opponent’s route. On a narrow crossing, claiming the useful ground can force a rival to take a longer way around.

The map makes route planning more than a straight line. Rivers call for bridges, small hills can be tunneled through, and debris may need to be cleared with a bulldozer before construction can continue. Buildings and existing routes can also pinch off a clean approach. On a crowded map, two companies can meet where their planned lines cross. On a more open one, the same players might barely see each other while both make a dash for the finish.

The shipment count gives the race a clear endpoint: move the required number of trucks across and you win. Trucks roll automatically once launched, but that does not make the match hands-off. A route can be interrupted, an opponent can open another road, and the timing of launches competes with the time and credits needed to improve your position. You are making a sequence of small decisions while the larger plan keeps moving.

## Credits keep the road moving

Construction, trucks, and attacks all cost credits. Money arrives over time, and a route that passes gold deposits can increase your income. That creates a direct choice between spending now to get freight moving and putting a longer-term investment on the board. A shortcut may help one truck arrive quickly; a gold route may fund several later trucks or the defenses needed to keep them moving.

The map does not let you cover everything in roads without a cost. Building takes both money and time, and structures occupy space you might want for another road or tool. Some actions also have limits or cooldowns, so repeating the same attack in the same place is not always available immediately. The match can shift as players spend: the company that has a more reliable income may be able to keep rebuilding after a setback, while a rushed attack can leave its own convoy exposed.

This economy is part of the rivalry rather than a separate city-building layer. You are not developing a town or collecting resources across a long campaign. The deposits and construction choices matter because they affect the next trucks in this match. When a game ends, the main strategic loop resets for the next map or rematch.

## Sabotage comes in many shapes

Roads are only one way to interfere with a rival. Dynamite can break a section of asphalt, bombs can damage a wider area, and missiles give you another way to threaten enemy routes or structures. An electromagnetic pulse can disorient trucks for a short time. Radar-jamming and scanning tools affect what you can see, so information has a cost and an opposing company may be preparing an attack outside your current view.

The defensive side gives you reasons to spend credits at home. Turrets can protect a road network and fire on enemy structures within range, while placement limits keep them from covering every approach. Roads can also be protected indirectly by making the route less attractive to attack or by leaving enough money to repair a break. You are deciding whether a credit should extend the convoy, make the route harder to cross, or inconvenience another company before it reaches the goal.

Some of the tools turn highway construction into a cartoon dispute over who gets to use the land. Protesters can prevent work on wetlands, police can close roads, and a donut shop can lure the police elsewhere. Those interactions sit beside mines, EMPs, and turrets, so the tone is light even when the game is asking you to keep several moving parts in mind. The trucks are tiny on the board; the damage to a carefully planned route can still be immediate.

Attacks depend on what you can see. Fog of war limits your information, and a visibility tool can briefly reveal more of the map. The benefit is that you may spot an opening or a threatened route; the constraint is that some attacks cannot be directed at places you cannot currently observe. That makes reconnaissance another part of the race, especially when you and your friends are placing roads on opposite sides of the same terrain.

## Playing together still means competing

The team-versus option puts players on opposing sides. Friends on the same side work toward the same victory, while each company still races to deliver its trucks first. Team-versus keeps the objective simple: your side tries to deliver enough trucks before the other side does.

If your group would rather have everyone for themselves, the free-for-all mode supports that too. It can make four routes compete for the same gaps, while a smaller match leaves more room to build. AI opponents can also join multiplayer matches. The game also features adaptive AI.

DETOUR supports online multiplayer matches. Keyboard-and-mouse controls move the camera and place a selected structure, while hotkeys or the scroll wheel switch through roads, vehicles, and equipment. That selection method takes practice, and the challenge stages introduce the controls before the busier multiplayer board.

The multiplayer lobby has a host and a party leader. Public opponents may be harder to find than a ready-made party, so DETOUR is easiest to plan around friends. 

## What the solo modes add

DETOUR also includes single-player challenges, a survival mode, and a tower-defense mode. The challenge set pits you against AI companies while introducing the unusual road-and-truck rules. Three tutorials cover the basics; later challenges ask you to combine routes, vehicles, and attacks under pressure.

Survival and tower defense change the match shape, but they are solo modes rather than cooperative missions for your group. In tower defense, enemy trucks come from one side of the map while you place turrets and environmental obstacles to protect factories on the other. Survival asks you to handle successive rounds on your own. They give you more things to try between online sessions, although there is no story campaign that carries a party through a sequence of shared objectives.

The challenge set is finite, and the basic multiplayer objective stays recognizable from map to map. The built-in map editor adds another source of variation: you can make layouts of different sizes and share custom maps. That matters most for a group that likes learning a ruleset and then changing the board underneath it. DETOUR does not appear to have a large collection of distinct player roles or character builds; the differences in a match come from map shape, tool access, timing, and how each company spends its credits.

## A match for your group?

DETOUR fits a group that wants direct strategy matches and does not mind that friends will be trying to disrupt one another. Team-versus mode lets friends share a side, while free-for-all can make the same group a four-way traffic problem. Routes, credit decisions, and sabotage create the moving parts; there are no separate hero classes or co-op roles to learn.

It is a weaker fit if your group is looking for a relaxed PvE co-op campaign or a deep progression track. The game’s central loop repeats across matches, its challenge content is single-player, and the learning curve comes partly from an unusual control scheme. Opponents can pass on opposite sides of a map without meeting, while crowded routes and sabotage can make another match feel hectic. DETOUR is a compact race where disruption sometimes lands and sometimes misses.

The look is a bright, angled board of miniature factories, roads, trees, water, and trucks. Explosions, fog, and colorful route markings make the changing map readable at a glance, while the construction-company jokes give the conflict a playful edge. If your friends enjoy a strategy game where a bridge, a gold deposit, or one blocked tile can reshape the race, DETOUR offers a distinctly road-shaped argument to have together.

## On Steam

- **Play together:** Online PvP, Co-op
- **Playing now:** 2
- **Platforms:** Windows
- **Developer:** Geoff 'Zag' Keene, Richard Keene
- **Publisher:** Geoff 'Zag' Keene

[View on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/92100/)

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Source: https://playnext.party/en/games/detour/

Language: en