What is Difflocked?
A free browser racing game with classic 4×4s: 265 vehicles across 21 courses in 4 countries, raced alone against AI drivers, in time trials and 4×4 trials, in a championship, or with friends over the internet. It runs in the browser with nothing to install, and it grew out of 4x4s.org, an enthusiast registry of the real vehicles.
How do I play?
Pick a vehicle, pick a course, race. Drive with the up arrow or W, steer with the arrow keys or A and D, brake with the down arrow or S — brake and turn to slide, hold the brake at a standstill to reverse — press E to use the power-up you are carrying, R to recover if you are stuck, C to change camera and M for sound. On a phone the controls are on screen. The first race in a country is a rolling start behind the pack; two laps decide it.
What are the vehicle classes?
Gen 1, 2, 3 and 4 are the leaf- and coil-sprung lines that make up most of the fleet, with V-Shorty, Shorty, Standard and Long wheelbases and a choice of roofs and paint. Outback is the Australian 4×4 and 6×6 family, Linares the Spanish-built one. Special Vehicles and Military carry named machines — fire tenders, ambulances, armoured cars, expedition trucks, ice cream vans — each with its own perks. Fan favourites unlock after you have submitted three race times.
Are these real vehicles?
The models are original low-poly interpretations of classic 4×4 types, and the game gives them its own names. Difflocked is an independent enthusiast project with no affiliation to any manufacturer. If you want the real vehicles — their histories, makers and sources — that is what the registry is for.
What do power-ups do?
Drive through a crate to pick one up; you carry one at a time. Turbo boost, bumper shield, repair kit, oil slick, air horn, blues and twos and more — the fire tenders drop ladders, the ice cream vans play chimes, the armed vehicles carry weapons. Time trials have no power-ups at all.
What do the difficulty levels change?
Rival speed, how strongly the field pulls back to you when you fall behind, and how hard you can push the car. You can change difficulty mid-race from the pause menu, but a race run below the standard level is unranked: its time is recorded for you and never shown on a leaderboard.
How do leaderboards work?
Each course keeps its fastest fifty times per ranked difficulty. After a race you can submit your time under a name of your choosing (no account needed); names are filtered for abuse. Times are per browser session of play, so a time you submit is tied to that race, not to an account.
Can I race my friends?
Yes. Choose Multiplayer, share the room, and up to eight racers run the same course together over the internet through our relay. Each player's car and name are passed to the others live and are not stored.
What is the Creator?
The Creator lets you specify a vehicle of your own — lineage, model, wheelbase, body, paint, bumpers, lamps, racks, beacons and more — save it to your garage and race it. With a free account you can publish it to the community builds, where other players can copy it and drive it.
What are AI renders?
Pictures labelled AI rendering impression are made by an image model painting a vehicle's 3D model into a scene. They are impressions, not photographs. Rendering of community builds is a limited feature an administrator can switch on or off; when it is off no AI pictures of builds are shown and there is nothing to request.
Something is wrong, or I have an idea.
Tell us through the contact form on 4x4s.org — a course that behaves oddly, a vehicle that handles strangely, a leaderboard entry that should not be there, or a feature you would like. The game's code is open source, so a bug report with the browser and the course helps enormously.
Who made the music?
The background music is Game Minecraft Gaming Background Music by Maksym Malko, from Pixabay under the Pixabay Content License. The guns, the hits, the engines, the clatter of tracks, Patrol's night forest, the rustle of bushes, falling trees and vehicles exploding or crashing are recordings from Pixabay (by lordsonny, dennish18, freesound_community, kave_msri, eryliaa, tutmozis, yodguard, manshaofficial, floraphonic, dragon-studio, mollyroselee, nematoki and u_mgq59j5ayf), also under the Pixabay Content License. The helicopter rotor recording is Helicopter - Ambience by GD_SALMAN, from Pixabay, under the Pixabay Content License. Everything else you hear — tyres, surfaces, crashes, wood cracking and creaking, and a layer under each engine — is synthesised in the browser.
Is it really free?
Yes: no adverts, no purchases, no accounts needed to play. It costs a little to host, and the project is run for the pleasure of it.
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