If you've ever wondered what would happen if you put an AI VTuber, her evil twin, their creator, a cow, an imp, and a monkey in a car in a post-apocalyptic desert and told them to drive thousands of kilometers, congratulations. You've got the same brain as Vedal987, the creator of Neuro-Sama and her twin, Evil.
The girls, along with Vedal, KokoNuts, Camila, and Crelly, kicked off a marathon of The Long Drive on October 12, with the ambitious goal of making it through a game that demands a lot more than just keeping a vehicle pointed in the right direction.
Each person streams their own perspective of the chaos, with Vedal's channel switching between Neuro, Evil, and himself. The six have been apparently finding new ways to turn their road trip into an insurance company's worst nightmare.
For the unfamiliar, The Long Drive is an open-world driving and survival game set in a procedurally generated desert. Players need to scavenge for supplies, maintain their vehicles, manage fuel, and navigate an enormous stretch of road while trying to survive the journey.
The ultimate destination is about 5,000km away, and it'll take you the same amount of time to drive that 5,000km as it would in real life. While the lore-accurate goal is to get to the protagonist's mother's house, Neuro and Evil prefer to imagine Disneyland as the final destination. There's plenty of freedom, but the game's physics can be hilariously unpredictable, turning a regular drive into slapstick comedy.
If you recall the last time Neuro-Sama did a marathon stream, she ticked off all of the ways to die in Minecraft Hardcore one by one, leading to the slow descent into insanity for her companions. It seems like this time around, she's taking the same approach.
The first major casualty arrived before the group had even settled into the journey. Camila fell victim to the game's physics, becoming entangled with the car, eventually succumbing to her injuries. Shortly after, Evil also passed away thanks to Camila accidentally dropping a truck on her head.
Things only got more absurd when Vedal managed to get himself stuck in a well, taking advantage of the physics to launch himself out, and then immediately dying from the impact of the fall.
Since their expedition began, there's been a plethora of incredible deaths. Vedal shot Camila, Crelly died in a car crash, and Neuro and Evil got stuck in the ground. Perhaps the most hilarious example of The Long Drive's physics causing mishaps, though, was watching Neuro soar across the sky with no one else having any idea how that happened.
The marathon is keeping me riveted, not just because of the unreliable physics. The unusually long objective combined with a group of people who could just wander off, die, lose their car, or get separated along the way is pure cinema.
The game is difficult enough when you consider it's pretty hard to find a vehicle that can accommodate everyone. So much so that a makeshift seat has been installed on the roof of the Neuro Car. Just don't let the twins sit there--the game will break.
The Long Drive really is long, and at the time of writing, the friends are around 53% of the way through their trip, having done three days of streaming for roughly 10 hours per day. The desert is vast, and the cars are unreliable, but even if the most dangerous obstacle on their route is a well, I have faith in the chaos and will be following their journey closely.