What to avoid (and hit) when you’re driving in Sand Land

As the last project that the late Akira Toriyama was involved in, it's an honor to play Sand Land and feel Toriyama's style and storytelling throughout the game. One of its biggest selling point is desert driving, and players will have the opportunity to hit a bunch of things with their vehicle to get new materials that they can use in-game.

What to avoid while driving in Sand Land

Let's start this guide with the things that you shouldn't hit with your vehicle. This isn't a hard-and-fast rule, there's actually very little in the game that you can't hit — and the things you can't hit, you can usually drive over and go flying into the air.

Large boulders

You can't drive over these, you will just hit them and stun your vehicle for a second. If you try to drive over the very edge of one, you might just bump it and get redirected a little.

Rocky boulders

During the start of the game when you're chasing down the humans to steal their water, you can hit rocky boulders without causing any actual damage to yourself or Centaur. Beelzebub does make some "Ow!" noises if you go through them in that scene, but you don't take any damage there.

Outside of that moment, best not to tempt fate.

Flat rocks

Rocks or boulders closer to the ground can be driven over without any consequence, but they can make your journey less smooth and send you flying (depending on the height of the one you decided to try and hit). We're not saying definitely don't hit them, they're actually quite fun to drive over, but there's no benefit to driving over them.

Cliffs

There are no barriers in Sand Land. Think Rainbow Road in Mario Kart. You will just go over the edge, and end up back where you were originally. The same thing will happen if you're outside your vehicle and just exploring — though, depending on the height of the drop, you might just drop to the next floor down. I did this when I was running up the staircase to go and talk to Lucifer at the start of the game and I was quite pleased that the drop didn't kill me.

Anyway, Cliffs. You're not playing GTA, there's no crash or explosion, you'll just have a little fade-out moment while the game resets your position.

And, of course, if you try to hit the bottom of a cliff, you're just going to bounce a bit.

Related: How to repair a vehicle in Sand Land

What you can and should hit in Sand Land

As you're driving along in Sand Land and taking in the scenery, you'll come across various things that you can hit with your vehicle to gain materials. These include enemies, trees, wildlife... And many of these will attack you if you get too close anyway. Except the trees.

Trees and other plantlife

Bashing a dead tree with your vehicle will give you Plant Matter. You can also find this material from some other plants, but there are just so many dead trees around.

Funnily enough, if you hit a catus, you... Get a catus. You can use Plant Matter and Catus materials later to craft items like Cactus Silk and Vegetable Oil.

Raptors

You will come across a variety of raptors throughout the game, especially while you're driving around. By killing these creatures, you can gain several different crafting materials that are very useful to have.

For example, early on in the game you'll encouter smaller red and green raptors. The red raptors will drop a Raptor Scale upon their death (as will other types of raptors), and the green or 'Gem' raptors will drop a Glittering Green Scale.

Scorpions

This isn't Animal Crossing, you won't get stung as long as you keep ramming the scorpions with your car. I think having all those scorpions sting me in ACHN has made me a little bit biased towards them...

Anyway, these little yellow guys are a bit harder to spot than the raptors, but I've noticed they hang around more near the cliff faces and there was a tonne of them by the cacti. Raptors roam a bit more freely, it seems.

The annoying thing about the scorpions is that they dig underground and wait for you. I enjoyed driving in circles and occasionally hitting them to add a bit of flavor to my game.

Related: All Sand Land materials and how to get them

Other items found while driving in Sand Land

Another great thing to watch out for while you're driving in the Sand Land wastes is loot boxes and chests. These small boxes can be hard to spot when they're by themselves, but many of them are located among the wreckage of other vehicles and machinery that has been lost to the desert.

In these boxes, you can find a wide range of crafting materials, so it's best to start looking for them as early on in the game as you can. You may find Shock-Absorbing Rubber, B-Grade Steel and other B-Grade crafting materials, Alloys, Standard Springs and other Standard crafting materials, and more.

You'll also come across various caves while driving in Sand Land, and you will need to exit your vehicle to explore these areas. While running around whichever cave you've found, you'll be able to find even more crafting materials and a few other helpful items, too. Oh, and the cave cobras. Don't forget about those.

Driving is a really enjoyable part of Sand Land and it's obvious that a lot of effort went into these parts of the game — which is great, because travelling betrween locations in RPGs can often feel really repetitive. Enjoy scouting for more crafting materials throughout Sand Land and driving as fast and wildly as you like.

Looking for more Pro Game Guides Sand Land content? Check out our guide on How to climb hills in Sand Land and How to beat the Geji Dragon in Sand Land.