The MotoGP franchise has become somewhat of a stalwart annual racing game release over the past few years. With its longstanding history developing this franchise as well as RIDE, Monster Energy Supercross, and various other racing games, developer Milestone has evolved into one of the premier racing game developers in the industry that continually betters itself with each release of each franchise.
“The Career offers the meatiest piece of gameplay, as usual, and has a handful of refinements that make it a smoother and more efficient experience.”
MotoGP has historically been one of their titles with the most gravitas, running for more than two decades with its official license with MotoGP, but as with most annual sports or racing franchises, new releases have varied in their balance between adding new modes or content and simply updating rosters or licenses. While still gorgeous and smooth to play, MotoGP 26 falls more on the latter side of the balance, offering what is largely a mirror of last year’s game with some physics tweaking and minor expansions on the Arcade gameplay style and specialized Race Off modes. It remains the definitive MotoGP experience with a wide range of tracks, race types, and accessibility options, but MotoGP 26 doesn’t transform the formula for anyone who’s played it in recent years.
As with past MotoGP games, MotoGP 26 focuses on getting you on the track as quickly as possible. There are no major new modes this year, nor is there much of a story in the Career mode, as the core single player and multiplayer modes remain largely in tact from previous entries. There are your traditional single player and online modes, including the expansion of online lobbies to 22, though we were not able to test the online experience during the review period.
There’s also an introduction of a new card pack collection mode in the visual vein of an Ultimate Team experience, but fortunately these are costless and purely collectible, offering just another reason to keep playing and fill your collection.
The Career offers the meatiest piece of gameplay, as usual, and has a handful of refinements that make it a smoother and more efficient experience. You can create a character as always, but you can now also play as any of the real-life MotoGP riders and step into their shoes throughout the season and beyond, even if you choose to start your career at Moto3.
There is also more definitive week-to-week intrigue, as you are more able to directly respond in press conferences about who your rivals are and what parts of your bike you want to continue developing, and these directly impact the key opponents you have on the track and the way in which your bike improves over the season.
Beyond those updates, though, the Career mode is largely unchanged from previous entries. You play through the full season of Moto3, Moto2, or MotoGP as your selected or created driver, and each grand prix consists of the full weekend of practices, qualifying events, and races, including sprint races when you make your way to MotoGP weekends.
“The Arcade mode significantly pulls back the realism in favor of accessibility and ease of use.”
Your ultimate goal, of course, is to collect as many points as possible throughout the races to win the championship by the end of the season, and in the meantime there are also weekly goals and multi-week rival challenges that pit you against another rider of your choosing to score more points than them in the coming weeks.
All of this is in service of keeping you on the track as much as possible while shaking up the week-to-week marathon of the season, and the on-track experience is another incremental step forward for the franchise. MotoGP’s gameplay has always been among its strongest features because it highlights the strong balance needed in this sport between high speeds and cornering, and the updates this year do nothing to disrupt that balance.
Bikes certainly feel more unique from one another than they have in the past, as some slower bikes would allow me to turn a corner easily while others struggle to turn but outpace other riders on straightaways, and there is something immensely satisfying about figuring out your bike’s tendencies and being able to perfectly make a tight turn and zoom past your opponents.
On the other hand, it can be immensely frustrating when you feel like you have no control over your bike, but the game fortunately offers a host of accessibility options to adjust to both your play style and your skill level, including returning its two main racing experiences: Sim, the pure simulation at the core of the MotoGP franchise, and Arcade, the more forgiving experience introduced last year. The Sim experience offers the most in-depth control over your bike and your team that you can have, down to tire compression and pit stop strategy, while also imposing the most realistic rules and riding physics the game offers.
The Arcade mode significantly pulls back the realism in favor of accessibility and ease of use. It’s much more difficult to wipe out, penalties are enforced at a much slower pace, and you can more easily recover from bouncing off of other drivers or running off track. It’s much easier to play in Arcade mode, but the Sim offers much more granular control and higher potential for your bike.
“Sound design is also a standout, as crowds roar over engines firing to recreate the feeling of being in high-pressure moments and reward the effort to reach the pinnacle of the sport.”
These two racing experiences highlight the range that MotoGP’s gameplay can have from a difficulty and flexibility perspective. You can take either of those experiences at their default settings, or at any time you can change any number of rules around penalties, computer assistance, or AI difficulty, which can also be set to adapt to your own skill level. At their extremes, these could be either far too lenient or far too stringent for any individual player, but the ability to change the experience so drastically creates accessibility for hardcore and non-hardcore MotoGP fans alike.
There’s also an expansion of the different types of races that you can enter with the expansion of the Race Off mode, which has a variety of different bike types and tracks away from the spectacle of a full grand prix. The new production bikes, for example, add to the roster of flat bikes and minibikes that can be taken out for shorter races, and these handle completely differently from traditional bikes. These are fun to race, particularly when they show up as interlude weeks within the course of a Career season, but they certainly don’t have the depth that the classic on-track experience offers.
From a technical perspective, even for a MotoGP game, this game is gorgeous and runs incredibly smoothly. Each track is beautifully rendered and can look completely different depending on time of day and weather conditions, in addition to the impact those have on the racing itself. I had no technical hiccups throughout my time with the game, and while the off-track visuals are lower-quality, the overall visual style is beautiful and realistic.
Sound design is also a standout, as crowds roar over engines firing to recreate the feeling of being in high-pressure moments and reward the effort to reach the pinnacle of the sport, complementing strong and responsive controls that effectively use the controller’s haptic feedback.
“With its limited improvements, MotoGP 26 doesn’t move the needle from past entries in the franchise, but it remains the definitive experience for MotoGP fans.”
Developer Milestone continues to up its game each year with the MotoGP franchise. While changes year-in and year-out aren’t always the most expansive, this franchise continues to cobble together the most refined and expansive MotoGP experience on the market. With that said, MotoGP 26 is one of the entries with fewer upgrades and more incremental changes.
The game continues to take steps in visual and auditory fidelity and offers a wide range of accessibility options that open the door to fans of all experience levels, but this year’s game largely feels like a slight update over last year. With its limited improvements, MotoGP 26 doesn’t move the needle from past entries in the franchise, but it remains the definitive experience for MotoGP fans.
This game was reviewed on PlayStation 5.
