Micro Machines-inspired Make Way gets expanded multiplayer in free update

Released in December 2023, Make Way is a chaotic, top-down party racer with a unique twist. On the surface, it’s inspired by classic car combat games like Micro Machines and Mashed, with players being eliminated if they fall off the track or get left behind.

What sets Make Way apart is that each player builds the track before each race, placing track pieces and hazards. As the round progresses, the track gets increasingly complex and challenging. With players attacking each other with weapons (yes, you can attack rivals with hammers like in Micro Machines), races can get extremely chaotic – but that’s what makes it so riotously fun.  

Today’s (13th March) substantial 1.3 update increases the player count from four to six both locally and online, taking the unbridled chaos to the next level.

However, it’s worth noting that the PlayStation versions won’t support local six-player matches since you can’t connect more than four controllers for multiplayer sessions. You can still have up to six racers on the track with bots, and online races will support up to six players across all platforms.

If six players battling it out sounds too chaotic, a new Bulldozer track piece included in the update lets you remove obstacles placed by rivals, or you can limit matches to four players like before.

Races are more customisable too, with new options allowing you to increase the final score limit, change how many fails it takes to trigger a checkpoint skip and choose which weapons and obstacles appear. If you’re feeling devious and want to remove walls and fill the track with weapons, you can. 

Rounding out the update are three new vehicles, including a US-style family estate, race car and milk truck. Sporting a blue and red livery, the race car appears to be homaging Daytona USA’s Hornet hero car, while the milk float is modelled after YouTube streamer SMii7Y.

“A lot of the community requests are things that went into this”

According to Make Way’s creator Tom Goodchild, founder of Dundee’s Ice Beam, the update has been in the making for around eight months and adds highly requested features from the community.

“A lot of the community requests are things that went into this [update],” Goodchild explained to Traxion.

“A lot of people wanted to change the odds of different weapons and features, which is exactly like Chicken Horse. You can customise your experience.”

“It took some time to integrate it. Retroactively trying to fit stuff into a UI was difficult, especially with the complexity of the game. But I think I did a fairly good job getting it in.”

Designed with multiplayer in mind, Goodchild, who previously worked as a Game Designer at Codemasters for Toybox Turbos and F1 Race Stars, revealed that Make Way was originally going to have eight-player multiplayer. According to Goodchild, the player count was reduced due to time and performance optimisation.

“On the Switch, it was very performance-heavy, and I had to be hitting at least 60fps for the physics,” he explained. “I’m not a programmer by trade, so optimising on Switch was a lot of effort and time.”

“It wasn’t planned to be four players and then we do a six-player update, or four players, and then we do this update where we make all these changes and add new features. It happened to fall out that way. The increase in players was intentional and something I wanted before, but it’s nice that we can add these things back in.”

“I think the frustration is part of the experience“

Increasing the number of players in each round risks creating balancing issues, but Goodchild feels that “the frustration is part of the experience.”

“Luckily, because you build your own tracks, you kind of get away with it because they’ve created their own frustration. If you put too many pegs and can’t get around them, that’s your fault,” he jested.  

Introducing the ability to remove track items helps reduce the frustration if races get too manic. “It is to alleviate the idea where they put too many things and create a course they can’t navigate.”

“You can now come along and remove bits, which is another big requested feature. Because of the nature of how it’s made, you’ve got no one else to blame but yourself for making it too hard, which is a nice place to be.”

“Maybe in the future we’ll push to eight [players], but that might be too much.”

Looking ahead, Goodchild hopes to keep supporting Make Way with further updates and add new requested features.

“We haven’t finalised what we’re doing yet. But if I did another update, I would take my time and this would be the one that does everything that everyone wants in a kitchen sink-style update,” he said.  

“We’ve got to a position where it’s mostly bug-free. There are a few annoying issues I still haven’t managed to track down, but 99% of the time it works reliably online and it’s ticking all the boxes for what people want.”

“It would be nice to take my time and gather the right set of features – people have been requesting a team mode,” he said, adding that players are also asking for new vehicles and track pieces “every day.”

With Make Way’s focus on track building, uploading and downloading custom tracks is another highly requested feature. However, Goodchild isn’t sure if suits the chaotic party racer.

“I still don’t know exactly what that means because you make the track,” he said. “If you download a whole track, how does that change the game? Is that a new mode? That’s been a huge top-line feature that I definitely want to get in.”   

Make Way is available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

Will you be trying Make Way’s multiplayer update? Let us know in the comments below.