WheelMates Backyard

The Backyard is the first named WheelMates space that is not a room. Firevolt’s Steam campaign, out 1 September 2026 for PC and Steam Deck, sends two RC cars through Professor Everett Bloom’s house in a sequence the studio already printed: Kitchen for the first power-ups, Garage for magnet grab and rope swing, then this outdoor wing. Next Fest press called the journey a set of unlockable escape rooms “through the Kitchen, Garage, Backyard, and other mysteriously closed-off, wide open crawlspaces.” This page is about that lot as Firevolt actually showed it. It is not a fake atlas of every fence post.

You still need two living players. Online and split-screen both work. Friend’s Pass still covers the guest. There is still no solo campaign, no combat, and no timer. The yard will look like a skate park because the official screenshots are full of ramps. That is bait the same way the Garage’s open floor was bait. Progress is still a conversation. Bring the puzzle grammar from the walkthrough instead of treating dusk as a race.

What we can source (and what we will not)

On 24 June 2026 Firevolt posted that a closed playtest of a brand new location, the Backyard, would run 26–28 June. The public demo that closed 3 August stayed Kitchen plus Garage. The full game is where this wing belongs. If you only played the demo, the yard is new. If you only watched trailers, treat the press list as the map: Kitchen, Garage, Backyard, then laboratory spaces and the rest of the house. Next Fest copy also sells a living room and “under the sofa.” Those are indoor house lines, not a promise that a sofa sits in the pool.

Official screenshots — the hero on this page is /images/ss-lab.jpg — show the yard at dusk: a lit pool with a slide, wooden and metal ramps, satellite dishes on poles and rooftops, string lights on a shed, suburban houses through the trees, and two cars parked on a high wooden lip. Green cables run along one ramp. A purple tube hugs another. Looking at that picture is allowed. Inventing a named switch under the slide, a dish-by-dish spoiler, or a required pool crossing Firevolt has not published is not. Launch-week writers who list every paver are filling space.

Garage demo audio already pointed outdoors: four-sector power, backyard antennas, fuel pumps, and a giant that needs manual activation. Read that as the story wiring the house into the lot, not as a spoiler for which antenna you must hit first. The walkthrough stays the grammar book. This page is the outdoor chapter heading.

How to enter the yard without treating it like a race

Bring the Kitchen and Garage habits. Magnetic wheels, magnet grab, and rope swing do not stay indoors. A metal dish array is a wall you might climb later. A cable that looks decorative from the Garage door might be a line once you are small enough to see it. Dual pads and hold-hazard jobs do not stop because the ceiling became sky.

1. Confirm both cars can leave the Garage. If player two is still fighting binds, stop. Outdoor volume makes lost partners worse, not better.
2. Stop on the first high lip and look. Use free camera. Name what Firevolt actually put in the shot: pool, ramps, dishes, shed lights, the second ramp you cannot reach yet.
3. Read the top-right HUD. If the objective still names an indoor verb, you are not done with the previous room.
4. Sweep with the gadgets you have. Leave surfaces that scream “later tool” for a revisit. That is the same secrets discipline as a rafter.
5. Do not speedrun the pool edge. There is no clock. Dusk lighting and water will punish a frantic camera more than a slow one.

Steam Deck is supported on the launch build. Dusk, water, and a wide lot are heavier than a Kitchen table. If handheld hitching starts here, read the Steam Deck notes before you blame the cars. Split-screen on a Deck still needs a second controller and a second human. DirectX 12 desktops in the GTX 1060 / RX 580 class should still be fine if the host is stable; the new problem is two cars plus reflections, not a missing combat tutorial.

Story in the grass is still optional

Firevolt’s Devlog #2 is blunt: you can drive to the next location; nothing forces you to examine every object. The Backyard is the easiest place to forget that, because the lot looks like a playground. Slowing down is how the house tells a bigger story. The Journal stores the fragments: professor-voice nodes, scannable notes, and memory cards with audio logs. Green chemicals show up throughout the house, including the fridge argument about toxic BH-19 under the Kitchen island. If you see green in the yard, scan it if the game lets you, then keep driving. You do not need a complete outdoor lore run to open the next door.

Who else lived here, why the house is empty, and what the chemicals are for are Journal questions, not HUD questions. The living room and the laboratory will keep asking them after you leave the pool lights. Mark gated ledges. Come back. The campaign’s next room is often a dish you already saw and could not climb.

Co-op in an open lot

The Garage already taught you to lose sight of each other. The Backyard is that lesson with less ceiling. Stay in voice. There is no in-game voice chat. Hold-hazard and two-station machines, if the yard uses them, will fail silently if one of you is sightseeing the suburban skyline. Swap who hunts high (wheels, rope) and who hunts covers and floor gaps (grab). Call the state of the magnet toggle out loud.

If a path looks like a stunt ramp, it might be a stunt ramp. Mini-games and extra driving toys like open floors. Count those in the eight-hour completion, not in the six-hour story line. If your partner hates collectibles, clear the HUD marker, take one slow lap for scans, and agree to sweep later. Friend’s Pass still applies; the guest can come back for the dusk hunt without buying the game.

When the yard finally points you back inside — laboratory doors, house crawlspaces, or whatever the launch build names next — leave with the same gadgets you arrived with and a note about the dishes you could not reach. The Kitchen fridge is still a chemical cabinet. The Garage rafters are still a second map. The Backyard is the first time Bloom’s lot looks like a neighborhood, and the first time the antennas make the empty house feel like it was trying to talk to someone who is not coming back.

Drive the dusk. Do not invent a fence you have not seen. Come back when a new tool makes a satellite dish look like a road.