The most important thing to mention right out of the gate is how the bike feels to control. Supercross 25 is a neat mix of arcade and sim bike racing. You can’t just haphazardly careen into corners like this is Excitebike or Mario Kart or you’ll faceplant into the dirt. Like past Supercross games, there’s a dual stick approach to controlling your bike here. The left stick steers and tilts the bike backward or forward while the right stick adjusts the rider’s body weight, leaning in and out of turns. Managing the weight you put into turns is crucial in order to maintain traction and avoid slipping out. It’s worth pointing out that this is not a trick-heavy game. It’s encouraged that players perform whips and scrubs in order to angle oncoming turns better, but there’s little more extreme sports flair than that.

What I do find satisfying though is pulling the bike weight back through whoops, which are basically consecutive bumps. The added DualSense rumble enhances the viscerality of the different track conditions well. Managing flow through repeated jumps and corners is an aspect that can find you equally frustrated or satisfied, and it’s something Supercross 25 carries over from the real sport reasonably well.

"Managing the weight you put into turns is crucial in order to maintain traction and avoid slipping out."

One thing that enhances Supercross 25’s sense of realism are the ruts and deformation that change on the dirt terrain. I thought at first this marketed feature was a gimmick, but the evolving ruts around the tracks really do force the rider to pay attention to the ground every single lap. I bailed a number of times due to deep ruts sliding my bike off my line. This new terrain deformation feature further leans the series into a sim-like identity in a positive way.

Like ruts, weather also plays a part in managing bike stability. You can manually set weather conditions for outdoor tracks, though Career events have pre-established track conditions. I didn’t notice weather changing during races, but it’s nice that rainy conditions do cause notable slippage to not just the player but AI.

While I appreciate how ruts and weather add to a more in-depth racing experience, I can’t say the same for the turning and cornering physics. Whether you’re going through a tight hairpin or doing micro adjustments, turning just doesn’t feel intuitive or fun. Yes, turning the wheels on a bike going 45 MPH through heavy dirt in real life isn’t exactly the most intuitive thing in the world, but the game doesn’t replicate it well enough to justify how understeery turn-ins are. No matter the bike, it always feels like I’m fighting a battle of initial understeer and then snap oversteer to correct it. Just staying on track can be a difficult and frustrating ordeal for beginners. Players that didn’t care for the physics of Supercross 6 likely aren’t going to love this one either; the stiffness is largely the same as before.

"You can manually set weather conditions for outdoor tracks, though Career events have pre-established track conditions."

But while the understeer and oversteer of the bikes is a more subjective critique, the stiff animations are unquestionably average at best. In a lot of ways, the rider’s rigid movements look almost identical to past entries. I mean, just look mid-air body animations, there’s hardly any body movement at all, even when shifting weight. The team haven’t done much to improve animations in this title, which ends up taking away from the general graphical improvements. The game does look good, especially with the rain puddles and the changing dirt formations on the tracks. This is the first Unreal Engine 5 game in the series, after all. Though there’s still a lack of viscerality here. I’m disappointed by the lack of mud splashing and loose rider movement in particular, things that UE5 could’ve helped added.

Speaking of tracks, this game supplies a decent collection of them. Despite the same number as the last iteration (with 17), new tracks like Glendale Stadium are a welcome addition. And for outdoor fans, there’s a total of 13 tracks that allow weather customization. The number of riders has shrunk from the 80 of the previous game to just 65. A slight reduction of content is fine since this is something of a reboot, but there’s just not enough variety in bike/rider feel here to really offset that. Every rider feels the same to control, and the only difference in bikes is the sound and stats.

"The rider’s rigid movements look almost identical to past entries."

But let’s get into what we use these bikes for and check out the various game modes. First, the tutorials. This time around, instead of the tutorial being tacked onto the Career, it’s tucked away in a separate menu. Why they decided a reboot was the perfect time to hide away the Supercross Academy tutorial is beyond me. As a fairly new supercross player myself, I found the learning process of this mode lackluster. They did the bare minimum with tutorialization, just giving a checklist of stuff to accomplish without any explanation of concepts or advanced controls. If you want an actual explanation of what ‘whoops’ are, you have to go to a separate text menu for more in-depth explanations. I do not recommend this game for newcomers to the supercross racing game world. The onboarding is almost non-existent and the tutorialization is poor.

The Online Hub wasn’t available during the review phase, but from what we know, it’s similar how it was with Supercross 6. Thankfully, offline split-screen is available if you don’t have a PS Online or Xbox Live membership. Single Event, Rhythm Attack, Time Attack, and Championship make up the single-player modes. If you want to get your creative juices flowing, there’s the Workshop which allow custom suit graphics, bike liveries, and custom tracks with the track editor.

I’ve messed with plenty of track editors in my days, but this one is especially unintuitive and basic . First off, there’s just not that many fun options to experiment with. You have two outdoor and two indoor stadiums to select from and you cannot zoom in or out with the camera as you’re editing. While I’m okay with the variety of straights and jumps types, the size tool is pathetic. Jumps only have three size options to select from, all of which are laughably marginal. Want to make a 20 foot tall jump? Well, too bad; it’s either a tiny bump or a regular jump for you. And why can’t we alter the size of walls or step-up tables? I see little reason to bother with the track editor considering the scant amount of options it gives the player.

"There’s just not that many fun options to experiment with in this track editor."

No matter what mode you engage with, you’re always gaining some experience to progress bikes and riders further. Every level-up rewards a specific part or bike used. The reward progression structure is identical to most live service seasonal rotations, but without the ‘live service’ element. I just can’t help feeling like publishers are getting creatively complacent regarding progression systems, merely settling with copying the live service template even when the game isn’t a live service, but I digress.

Finally, there’s Career Mode. You won’t find anything groundbreaking here if you’ve played any sports game in the last decade as it mostly follows the same formula. You begin your supercross journey at the ‘Futures’ category with no reputation or following. Place within the top 15 of the following races and you’ll be catapulted into the ‘Rookie’ category with the choice to join a team within the 250 East or 250 West division. Opportunities will arise as you race to get other teams interested in partnering with you. The overdone social media aspect plays a role in Career too, with the number of followers affecting reputation. Complete objectives and finish well in races and your followers go up. Oh yeah, and you get DM’d by other riders and media with options to troll them or get in their good graces. I’m admittedly tired of the low effort recycling of career modes in sports games and, well, Supercross 25 isn’t giving me any optimism for the future in that regard. The social media Career stuff is rote and superficial at this point.

"A high team synergy pushes your Bike Development further, improving various stats."

Team synergy is at least somewhat interesting, though it’s been done in dozens of sports games for now. A high team synergy pushes your Bike Development further, improving various stats within the Speed, Acceleration, Handling, and Braking categories. Different teams emphasize certain stats more than others, and of course allow you to ride their particular bike brand.

You move up in Career through a series seasons composed of ‘Acts’. I like how there’s a rival for each act that berates you in DMs and performs aggressively during races. Oh yeah, and the AI in general is somewhat improved from the last game, but only slightly. Racers still brainlessly jump on your head and crash into you due to unintelligent pathing. Even on harder difficulties, they don’t move out of the way or alter their line, though they do flow much better and are hard to beat if you’re not experienced.

I wanted to love a bike game again and was hoping Supercross 25 would do it, but it has a physics model that isn’t fun or intuitive to engage with. I think there’s something to enjoy here if you’re a supercross fan and can get over the initial difficulty curve, but for everyone else, there’s not much here. The game leans in a more sim-like direction with the enhanced track deformation, but doesn’t manage to feel satisfying to master due to awkward physics and lackluster AI.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

"We added some things that were missing: fuel consumption and power mapping, so you can decide how much fuel take in the tank, and how to use it during the race. It’s a very strategical approach to the grand prix."

MotoGP 20 promises improvements made to damage on bikes- is that more of a visual thing, or does it have an effect in terms of driving the bikes as well?

Yes, the MotoGP bikes can break their winglets affecting the performance, but also other bikes get some physical damage (if turned on in the options): it’s a much-requested step.

MotoGP 19’s neural AI was a pretty big advancement that many fans and players took notice of- does MotoGP 20 take that a step further?

We refined and detailed the physics with some new aspects like 3-sections tires and fuel consumption, so they need to know how to avoid running out of fuel or rubber. And this is only the beginning because they had to manage the much more challenging brakes, and all the rest, improving their lap speed significantly.

What should fans expect from MotoGP 20 in terms of new historical content?

We added some bikes like the Cagiva C594, or the first NSR500 that Doohan led to victory in the championship, but we also refined the physics and introduced a new game mode based on randomly-generated races to make points and unlock new bikes.

Can you talk about the improved physics and the areas where they materialize the most?

We added some things that were missing: fuel consumption and power mapping, so you can decide how much fuel take in the tank, and how to use it during the race. It’s a very strategical approach to the grand prix. Then we improved the tire model: in ’19 it was a single entity, but now the two sides and the middle evolve differently, so track by track the tire choice and management becomes more involving and challenging, like in reality. Then we made the braking part more realistic, while in ’19 you could apply 100% brake force for much of the slowdown process, now you’re at risk of over-doing and flipping over, so at maximum realism setting it’s a very different package this year.

"We made a career mode that we define “managerial”: you can hire a personal manager to get contracts and get involved with team in negotiations, then you can get some personal engineers to acquire technical data to develop the bike."

How much of an impact does the introduction of new technical aspects for improving performances of bikes have on gameplay?

There are several levels of complexity: single lap, practicing for the race, and then the race itself that has to be managed and cannot be done 100% pushing all the time. Like real riders do, setups, rhythm, and race evolution now have to be understood properly to win.

Can you talk about the biggest improvements MotoGP 20 makes to the career mode?

We made a career mode that we define “managerial”: you can hire a personal manager to get contracts and get involved with team in negotiations, then you can get some personal engineers to acquire technical data to develop the bike. You have an R&D department that can be managed to produce new parts, so you have a lot of new tasks, even if firmly rooted into the rider’s perspective. We also added the possibility to race in real teams, but also “fictional” teams with real bikes and sponsors, but that don’t exist as a real team. Here you can have much more freedom in terms of visual customization and add a breath of fresh air to championships. All of this holds for the Moto3, Moto2 and MotoGP classes, it’s a long way to the top.

Have there been any pieces of feedback for the previous games that you’ve looked at in particular for the purposes of MotoGP 20’s development?

Yes, basically all the things I’ve covered involved some degree of community feedback and request, but it was quite easy to agree- we’re as passionate as our players so we like the same things, we have the same obsessions.

Something that’s considered very important in sports games is presentation- what can we expect from MotoGP 20 in that area?

Many touches: better graphics, better visual damages, but also better rider animations, 3D scanned faces for riders, and MotoGP team managers as well. New cutscenes that introduce the team at the beginning of the season. we’ve paid attention to all of this.

"Basically all the things I’ve covered involved some degree of community feedback and request, but it was quite easy to agree- we’re as passionate as our players so we like the same things, we have the same obsessions."

Will the game will feature Xbox One X and PS4 Pro-specific enhancements? Is 4K/60 FPS on the cards?

On these consoles there’s a quality/performance setting: in “quality” you can expect increased resolution (while not native 4K) and stable 30fps, while in “performance” we have full HD and unlocked frame rate targeted to 60fps.

How is the game running on the original Xbox One and PS4, in terms of frame rate and resolution?

It’s 30fps, with dynamic resolution, most of the times stable at 1080, the game due to physics, AI and number of bikes is more CPU demanding then GPU.

What are the docked and undocked resolution and frame rate of the Switch version?

720p with dynamic resolution, again we’re much CPU bound, and we give priority to the frame rate.

To its credit, MotoGP 20 is a game with absolutely no illusions about what it is and who it is for. It is a simulation, through and through, and one with serious fans of the sport in mind. Right away, you’re given the option to create your own custom racer, using a decent enough character creator. You select your gender, choose between a few presets faces for each, and select your nationality. That’s it for the general customization, though entering the career mode allows you to further customize your colors, number, and equipment to be used for the duration.

And the game’s attention to detail in this regard is commendable; the equipment all looks excellent, from the suits and helmets worn by the participants to he bikes themselves, which are loving rendered in solid detail. It’s obvious that the people responsible for the equipment visuals took their time, and that they really cared about what they were representing. The bikes in particular look top notch. Granted, the rest of the visuals can look dated, but that’s not really the point of a game like this; the bikes are, and they look terrific.

"For those with an interest in the sport, and the complexities of this kind of racing, there’s a rewarding experience to be had. For others, they may be better served looking elsewhere for their racing game fix."

The game is divided up into a couple of different modes, with the core of the game being a career mode. Here you can choose to start in one of three divisions, determining if you start your career already in the big leagues or if you want to begin by working your way up from the very bottom. The mode allows you to determine your personal manager, each of which offers different benefits and drawbacks, and sign on to a certain team, each with their own benefits and requirements. Once signed, you have full control over your team, hiring people and allocating your funds throughout different areas of research and development, such as your electronics or your engineering. These research tracks open up various improvements and modifications that can later be applied to your bikes.

The game takes this part of the simulation quite seriously. The level at which you can manage your bikes is impressive. The game models tire wear, forcing you to replace tires, as well as taking into account weather conditions and heat, and offering different tire types to accommodate. You can make on the fly changes in the pit to things like suspension, center of gravity, etc. The game even allows you to run with high fuel or low fuel, with changes to your speed and handling as a result. All of this can be further fine-tuned through the modifications and improvements that can be earned through the different research and development tracks available.

Once you have your bike in top condition, its time to hit the asphalt and start racing. Here as well, the game takes its commitment to the simulation very seriously. The game models every aspect of the race, from the wear of your tires and the amount of fuel in your tank to the wetness and temperature of the asphalt beneath you. Turns have to be taken very carefully; too fast and you’ll overshoot, too slow and you’ll flip over. The game’s physics are modelled very realistically, and although the game does offer several assistances such as automated gear shifting and assisted physics, it remains a very realistic simulation of high-speed motorcycle racing.

"The game models every aspect of the race, from the wear of your tires and the amount of fuel in your tank to the wetness and temperature of the asphalt beneath you."

And that’s both the game’s biggest strength and most defining weakness; it is a detailed simulation through and through, for better and for worse. For those coming into the game already aware of the intricacies of the sport, that’s a great thing, as it provides a game that offers exactly what it needs to do and lives up to that simulation completely. But for those less familiar, the game feels distinctly unwelcoming. There’s no tutorial to speak of; the game never explains its own controls, let alone the intricacies and uniqueness of this particular kind of racing. The controls themselves are buried under a menu in the Options screen.

As such, if you’re a player who isn’t as familiar with the sport itself, and was maybe instead just looking for another racing game, you’ll likely find yourself quite frustrated, as few skills from other games in the genre transfer over, and the game provides no warning or explanation in that regard. Devotion to realism and simulation is not a bad thing at all. On the contrary, it’s great for a game like this. But the game makes no concessions, nor even attempts to explain itself to those less familiar with the sport it simulates. As a result, its broader appeal becomes considerably narrower, limiting those likely to really enjoy it solely to those already enthusiastic about the sport, with little chance of it winning over newcomers.

The career mode isn’t the only option available. There’s a quick race mode, with options to toggle between a single circuit race, a time trial, and a custom championship. There’s also a historic mode. This mode features three challenges of progressively increasing difficulty, that randomly cycle through daily. These challenges take players back in time, allowing them to play as famous past motorcyclists in challenges inspired by events of the past. Admittedly, it’s a cool idea, and the cyclical (pun intended) nature of the challenges adds a little extra longevity to the game. There’s also an online multiplayer mode, which offers up some decent fun, though I was a little disappointed to find there’s not split-screen option to speak of.

"The game makes no concessions, nor even attempts to explain itself to those less familiar with the sport it simulates. As a result, its broader appeal becomes considerably narrower, limiting those likely to really enjoy it solely to those already enthusiastic about the sport, with little chance of it winning over newcomers."

MotoGP 20 is, through and through, a simulation for the motorcycle racing enthusiast. It knows exactly who its target audience is, and exactly what it is trying to deliver, and provides exactly that; nothing more, and nothing less. If you’re part of that target demographic, and that kind of game is what you are searching for, then this game will likely be right up your alley. The simulation is strong, the career mode deep enough to maintain interest, and the other modes enjoyable enough to keep you playing.

But if you aren’t already a fan, even if you’re curious about getting into the sport, this likely isn’t the game for you. With no tutorial or even an introduction to the sport, the game is unashamedly for enthusiasts only, and makes little attempt to win over casual fans. While this does allow the game to focus all its efforts on providing a top quality simulation for those who want it, it also results in a game that is the embodiment of limited appeal. If you’re into this kind of racing already, pick it up. If not, you’re better served looking for a more welcoming racing experience.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.