Please note that this interview was conducted before the launch of Ride 2.

Ride 2 will be expanding on its predecessor with an even larger array of bikes this time around. How important is the variety of bikes to the franchise?

I think that bikes are the core of the game, Ride was already a huge game in terms of assets, but we still had a lot of areas to explore in the world of bikes. We hope that Ride 2 could give the player the chance to taste a lot of new ways to live the world of motorcycles.

Which bikes can players expect from the 200 spread over 15 categories? How has the development team handled such a huge selection of vehicles compared to last year?

We have listened to the request of our fans, you can expect the bikes they were asking the most: Supermoto, Two stroke bikes (Both 125cc & 250cc), Café Racer…just to give you some examples. It’s not been easy, because we had a lot of different bikes to manage, and each of them could have different behaviors to handle. I think that the most difficult goal was to make the handling of every bike different and accurate, but we are very proud of the results about physics.

"We have twice the tracks of the first chapter. 30 different locations, for a grand total of 58 different race layouts."

What benefits to the gameplay, content and overall structure of the game could be seen by sticking to Xbox One, PS4 and PC for Ride 2 as opposed to current and previous gen with Ride?

First of all Ride 2 is a game only developed for last generation consoles, so it doesn’t have a lot of the limitations we had on the first chapter because of the old generation. I think we made big improvements on the graphics of the tracks and of the vehicles, on the physics of the bike, and also on the audio, particularly on the engines. We also worked a lot on the loading times, that now are a lot shorter that the ones of RIDE.

What can players expect in terms of game modes this year?

We focused our efforts on the main campaign of the game, the World Tour. We worked a lot to improve the sense of progression of the game, and we also added some new type of challenges, like a training mode in which you have to ride inside a path made by cones…a sort of riding license.

Has the main campaign been expanded for Ride 2? Will there be more Elite trophies and challenges to complete?

Last year players complained a bit about the main campaign, they said it was a bit too short. This year we have 400 different race events in the World Tour, plus extra events like championships, team vs team and special Invitational Events that have to be unlocked during the progression of the game.

How many tracks spread out over different locations can we look forward to?

We have twice the tracks of the first chapter. 30 different locations, for a grand total of 58 different race layouts. We have new specific tracks for the Supermoto, and we are particularly proud of the new Road race circuits, like Nordschleife, Nortwest 200 and UlsterGP.

Can players customize their bikes on a deeper level than last year? What challenges will be in place to ensure competition for the hardcore racers?

We have implemented new custom parts, (example, brake discs) and obviously also the new Supermoto will be fully customizable. I think that the bigger update about customization is the racing modify: this new feature allows the player to change some of the modern sport bikes in real racing monster with advance modifies, like fiberglass fairing with exclusive liveries.

"First of all the game now includes entry level bikes, like 125cc and 250cc, easier to control but still fun to ride. We have also worked on the riding helps, to make the game more accessible for new players."

What can we expect in terms of online play this year?

We mainly worked on the stability of the online experience. We will also have weekly challenges: basically every week we will select a bike and a track, and the players will have one week to perform the best time they can reach. Just one player at the top of the leaderboard!

Given that the original Ride was praised for its accessibility, how will Ride 2 welcome new racers to the fold?

First of all the game now includes entry level bikes, like 125cc and 250cc, easier to control but still fun to ride. We have also worked on the riding helps, to make the game more accessible for new players. For example, this year we have a new help related to the grip outside the track that is something our players asked for. So if you are a hardcore player you can decide to have real grips and the grass and the sand will be very slippery, while if you are a newbie player you don’t have to worry if you make a mistake and go out of track.

When will Ride 2 be releasing? Is development currently on track, given that the original saw several delays?

The release is scheduled for October 7^th and we are currently on track. The game is complete and stable; we are working on the polishing of the build.

Will Ride 2 run at 1080p and 60fps on both the PS4 and Xbox One?

The game will run at 1080p and 30fps on both PS4 and Xbox One.

I am sure you must have heard about the upcoming PS4 NEO and Xbox One SCORPIO. From a development perspective what kind of advantages will these new and upgraded consoles bring to games development due to their additional power?

From one side, for what we can expect there will be plenty of more power to use, but on the other side, the very same game must run also on the standard consoles, so you can improve on some areas like resolution, or frame rate, but you can’t make something structurally different. Think something like the HD ports  we’ve seen in the early next-gen times, to get an idea.

"Ride 2 is a game crafted with infinite love for motorbikes. We’ve build on a solid first iteration, to make a more ambitious, rich and fun game to play."

Microsoft certainly seems to be pushing 4K gaming with their upcoming Scorpio launch next year. As someone who is been developing games for a long time, will you push for 1080p/60fps or 4K/30fps on the new Scorpio?

I think it’s something that deserves some experiments, to understand what’s better from a player’s perspective.  Hitting the 60fps mark flawlessly is probably more challenging, and there might be the option for resolutions in between of HD/4K. Lots of new options to explore.

On the other hand we have Sony, whose NEO reportedly has a weaker hardware compared to Scorpio. Given the current trend of better performing games on PS4, do you think Microsoft will finally have a one up on Sony in the performance/resolution department when the NEO and Scorpio launch?

There will probably be two machines nominally capable of 4K graphics, but as you were saying, none of them will be easily doing this at 60fps, not in AAA quality titles. The bar is raised, and the challenge will be yet again on exclusives, and personal taste of players. I can’t see a clear winner only based on hardware specs, so.

Will you support the platforms (with games) when they launch?                              

It’s something we will for sure evaluate

Is there anything else you want to tell us before we let you go?

Ride 2 is a game crafted with infinite love for motorbikes. We’ve build on a solid first iteration, to make a more ambitious, rich and fun game to play. We’ve listened to the fans’ requests, and we’ve added tons of bikes, tracks, game modes. We’re setting the new benchmark in two-wheels racing games, so enjoy!

Microsoft certainly seems to be pushing 4K gaming with their upcoming console, the Xbox One Scorpio which is scheduled to launch next year. However as previously reported, Microsoft are not going to set any mandate on how developers will use all that power. The Scorpio is a 4K ready machine but in the end it’s up to the developers on how they want to use it.

In a recent interview with Matteo Pezzotti, the Lead Designer of Ride 2, GamingBolt asked whether Milestone will push for 1080p/60fps or 4K/30fps on the new console. Pezzotti stated that it depends on player’s feedback and what works best in their perspective.

“I think it’s something that deserves some experiments, to understand what’s better from a player’s perspective,” he said to GamingBolt. He believes that hitting the 60fps is more difficult so it will be a better option to play with resolution instead. “Hitting the 60fps mark flawlessly is probably more challenging, and there might be the option for resolutions in between of HD/4K. Lots of new options to explore.”

Ride 2’s engine renders the game at 1080p on the PS4 and Xbox One but at a 30 frames per second cap. So in that perspective, the developers of Ride 2 may opt for better resolution over frame rate if and when they develop for the Xbox One Scorpio. Personally speaking, I would like third party developers to target 1080p and 60 fps with all visual settings maxed out on the Scorpio but at the same time I would also like first party developers to run their games at 4K and 60fps.

I mean just imagine Forza Motorsport 7 running at 4K/60fps on the Scorpio. That sounds glorious, right?

There has been a lot of debate regarding what works better for video games. Should developers prefer better frame rate over resolution or should they prefer pixels over smooth gameplay? These questions have given rise to the so called resolution and frame rate wars between PS4 and Xbox One. We recently raised this question in our interview with Umbra COO Sampo Lappalainen and according to him there is no right or wrong while selecting better frame rate over pixels and vice versa.

“Different kinds of games set different requirements for frame rates and often developers have their own strong preference to the 30 vs 60 fps debate. I personally really like 60 fps and think that it adds a lot to the overall gaming experience. The resolution question however is a bit more complicated. In some sense, HD -> 4k can be seen as a incremental change instead of a revolutionary one in terms of graphics fidelity and still it hogs *a lot* more GPU cycles. The developers have to decide between increasing the number of pixels on the screen or adding nicer effects. These are not easy decisions and there are no right answers,” he stated to GamingBolt.

He also stated that upcoming iterative consoles like the PS4 Pro and Xbox Scorpio will in fact increase the work load of developers given that they now need to take care of multiple resolutions for a single game.

“Now when 4k is emerging and the iterative console generations are in the horizon, the developers might have to support all possible configurations. Old console & HD TV, new console & HD TV and new console & 4k TV. This means more work for the developers just to get all the configurations supported. In addition it is also a matter of what people expect from the developers. For example, if someone buys a shiny new 4k TV and the console supports that, they will assume that the game supports it too,” he further added.

What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments section below.

The PlayStation 4 Pro was never going to be the kind of beast that Microsoft is promising with the Xbox One Scorpio- it was always promised to be a smaller, more incremental step up over the existing PS4 model, a bit like the New Nintendo 3DS in principle. But we have to say, what Sony have announced at the PlayStation Meeting has still impressed us.

The PS4 Pro will ship with the same Jaguar CPU that the standard PS4 does- but its eight CPU cores will be clocked higher than on the standard PS4. The GPU sees a more substantial boost, with Sony claiming that it will have over double the power than the standard PS4 GPU. Sony is also claiming that they have adopted several features from AMD’s Polaris architecture, and some from beyond it. Higher bandwidth memory was also confirmed for the PS4 Pro at some point, although no more specifics were given.

All of this is to allow for better support for 4K and HDR visuals. Sony are claiming there are a number of hardware innovations they are adopting for rendering 4K images efficiently. All in all, it looks to be a pretty substantial upgrade- and it looks like for players who want the best PlayStation experience, the Pro is going to be an easy buy to gravitate to- especially since the library will be interoperable with existing PS4 systems

Sony have confirmed that the PlayStation 4 Pro will be launching this year, after all- although it will be missing its rumored October release date, shoppers and fans cans still get their hands on it this Holiday season- the Pro is going to launch on November 10.

This gives it a head start over both the NX and the Scorpio, and it also means that shoppers looking for some 4K and HDR content to go with their 4K and HDR TVs will now naturally gravitate towards the new system- not a bad place for Sony to be in. Perhaps the year head start, and the install base and content library that go with it, will let Sony fend off the Scorpio when it launches exactly a year later, then.

Sony have also confirmed that the system will be made available for $399, the same launch price as the PS4 and the upcoming PSVR.

The PlayStation 4 PRO has been something that we’ve known about for a while, now- it’s something that Sony officially confirmed, though they refused to talk about it in detail, back at E3. Now, they have finally taken the wraps off of the machine, and announced it officially at the PlayStation Meeting.

The PS4 PRO will be a higher end, more premium PlayStation 4 offering- it will play the same games as the PS4, except better, and better looking. The console’s design has not been revealed yet but it is expected that will be made with the same kind of styling and visual language as the PS4 Slim, and we guess it won’t be bad looking.

Thoughts? Let us know in the comments section below and stay tuned for more news and updates from the PlayStation Meeting right here on GamingBolt.

Bioware have made it very clear, categorically, explicitly, and in no uncertain terms, that the next time they are going to show off Mass Effect Andromeda on November 7– but it seems like there may have been some change of plans, because Bioware are now hinting that the game may be at the PlayStation Meeting, the event Sony is holding to debut the PS4 NEO and the PS4 Slim later today.

Bioware’s Michael Gamble, producer for Mass Effect Andromeda, as well as Ian S Frazier, are hinting at something related to Mass Effect happening at the PlayStation Meeting- and while my first assumption and hope is that they will show off Andromeda (at long last) at the event, it is also entirely possible that they end up showing off something like the long rumored Mass Effect Trilogy at the event, too (though in the context of it being the unveiling of a more powerful PS4, a Trilogy remaster certainly makes far less sense than Andromeda does).

The PlayStation Meeting will be later today, and it will be broadcast live. Mass Effect Andromeda is slated to launch by March 2017 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

It looks like Ubisoft’s upcoming Watch Dogs 2 may end up being shown off at the PlayStation Meeting later today, the event where Sony are planning on debuting the upcoming PlayStation 4 Slim and the PlayStation 4 NEO, later today. A tweet by Colin Graham, Animation Director on Watch Dogs 2, certainly seems to suggest so.

There has long been speculation that Sony will be showing off games at the event in addition to their hardware announcements, too- after all, nothing can sell the new and improved PS4 better than Sony showing some highly anticipated upcoming games running better on it, side by side with how they run on the original PlayStation 4. It looks like that speculation may indeed have been correct, because Watch Dogs 2 certainly seems like it will be there at the event.

Multiple new PlayStation hardware announcements, including the NEO and the Slim, are expected at the PlayStation Meeting tonight; for software, a lot of (probably wishful) speculation seems to be expecting Rockstar to show up and finally announce a Red Dead 3.

Whatever ends up happening, we will keep you posted. Stay tuned.

We already knew that the PlayStation Meeting tomorrow, which is where we are assuming the PS4 NEO and the PS4 Slim, not to mention a possible new PlayStation handheld, will occur, will be livestreamed. Now, we know exactly how to watch it as the event occurs.

Sony have today shared the livestream for the PlayStation Meeting– of course, there’s nothing on it yet, but it should help you catch the event live tomorrow, as it happens. The event is where Sony are expected to make a slate of new hardware announcements. There is also some speculation surrounding software being showcased at the event, though whether or not that means new game announcements, or simply older ones being shown off running better on the more powerful PS4 NEO is something that remains to be seen.

The PlayStation Meeting will be held tomorrow, in New York, at 3pm ET/2pm CT/12pm PT. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for all the coverage from the event, as it happens.

With the upcoming PS4 NEO and Xbox One Scorpio, the tables are turned- after a generation of games on PS4 looking better than their counterparts on the Xbox One, the Scorpio being far more powerful than NEO means that that is probably going to change.

When GamingBolt had a chance to talk to Matteo Pezzotti, the Lead Designer of Ride 2 at Milestone, we decided to ask him for his take on the issue- did he foresee the Xbox One Scorpio now boasting superior versions of multiplatform games over their PS4 counterparts, much like the heyday of the Xbox and Xbox 360?

“There will probably be two machines nominally capable of 4K graphics, but as you were saying, none of them will be easily doing this at 60fps, not in AAA quality titles,” he said. “The bar is raised, and the challenge will be yet again on exclusives, and personal taste of players. I can’t see a clear winner only based on hardware specs, so.”

Basically, Pezzotti seems to be saying that the machine that ends up with the advantage won’t necessarily be the stronger one, and that there will be more to it than just hardware specs. While I can agree with him on that, I also think that that sidesteps the fact that the Scorpio will indeed have far more grunt under the hood- which could certainly make multiplatform games run far better on it than they would on PS4.