SnowRunner has added a new map, Rift

A new area has opened up in SnowRunner with a free update today, inviting players to get stuck in the Taymyr's Rift map. Sounds like a great place to take a honking great truck off-roading, Rift does. The publishers have also now picked winners for the first wad of monthly prize money for people making popular SnowRunner mods.

Other features in today's update include multiple save slots, a fix for save corruption that trapped players in infinite loading, and more bug fixes and performance optimisations. See the Rift Update patch notes for more.

You might have found your saves have vanished, though. They say they're working on that but you can fix it manually too.

"This is just the beginning, as we now look to Phase 1 of content updates, with more maps, vehicles, missions, and more!" publishers Focus Home say. Other newness is coming from mods.

Focus Home this week detailed the SnowRunner Creator Rewards Program, which each month throws some money at the makers of popular mods. The five Top Mod Creators get €400 (£350) each and the five Rising Star Creators get €170 (£150) each. Prizes for mods is a win-win-win situation: the money's good for the modders, formally highlighting popular mods is useful for players who might not otherwise see them, and mods sustaining and boosting games helps sell more copies. The modkit is fairly limited right now, though future plans include tools for features including making maps and customising vehicle interiors. Mods are building on a decent game.

Jeremy Peel said in our SnowRunner review that plouging through the mud and snow, up hill and down dale, "encourages dogged persistence past the usual bounds of sense, beyond the normal stopping point of patience, toward a zen-like state of obstinance." The game's out now, though exclusive to the Epic Games Store.