Recent MotoGP 21 update adds motion controls like its 2007

Back in late 2006, the Nintendo Wii was launched to a fair confused holiday season crowd, but all throughout 2007 its combination of motion control remotes, Nunchuk and Wii Sports set households alight.

It was so successful, that both Sony and Microsoft set about ill-fated rivals in the form of PlayStation Move and Kinect. Since the initial boom, however, the world decided that it’d had its fill with motion controls, for the most part, and that more traditional control methods were what they were after.

Thanks to the latest game update, MotoGP 21, however, is harking back to those formative motion days, as if you have a PS5, PS5 or PC with a PlayStation controller, you can now use motion controls to control the motorcycles.

It’s… weird.

To activate the feature, you need to visit the options menu and switch the ‘motion sensor function’ on. Then, once you hit the track, you hold the DualShock 4/DualSense in front of you and then tilt it to the left or right for steering and forward and back for rider weight.

One potential hang-up with motorcycle simulators is that they can have the most realistic physics of all time, you’ve only ever got the option of using a gamepad and an analogue stick – unlike with four-wheeled racing where you can purchase wheel and pedal peripherals.

So, using the motion controls is an idea worth exploring to see if it delivers an additional level of emersion. As it happens in this current iteration, it doesn’t. I find it hard to place the bike, despite getting past the initial acclimatisation hurdle. Trying to prevent a wheelie boggled my mind.

Analogue sticks for me still, please.

Other tweaks were added to the game with this update too, including for players on Xbox, including further revisions to the top-class liveries and the addition of bike retrieval to online multiplayer races. It’s been live since the 5th August and may be the last significant update for the game.