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This year’s official game of motorcycle grand prix racing is safe like a cheese sandwich or a used Toyota – solid, dependable, but hardly going to burn up a set of soft Michelins. Here’s why…
MotoGP 25 is the 13th consecutive official game of the premier motorbike racing championship, and as per usual, it includes all the real-world machines, riders, tracks and liveries from the current season.
Not just for the top class either, as Moto2 and Moto3 grids are complete. Circuits too include the returning Brno, Termas de Río Hondo and even the new-to-MotoGP Balaton Park in Hungary, ahead of its actual debut.
That alone is no mean feat, considering the season is only five weekends in at the time of the game’s release. It’s also available across all major platforms: PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, but also the older PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.
Not only is it on every contemporary device, and with all the official content you’d expect, the feature list reads like an enthusiast’s dream.
A lengthy single-player career complements the regular single race weekend and time trial modes. For multiplayer, there’s local split screen, online lobbies, cross-platform play (including PC into the mix for the first time) and a multiplayer ranking system like a two-wheeled Gran Turismo 7 Sport Mode.
On track, there are slick Unreal Engine 5 graphics – at times, like photo mode, delivering breathtaking results – dynamic weather, flag-to-flag rules, a stewarding system with long-lap penalties, red flags and even the sprint format with a shortened race on the Saturday.
On paper, MotoGP fans have never had it so good. This is the zenith of virtual motorcycle racing.
Or is it…?
The yearly grind
How Italian developer Milestone is able to produce a yearly licenced sports game with so many features seems to be by slowly iterating.
This glacial approach to improving the underlying experience is none more evident than in MotoGP 25.
The fundamentals are solid. Think Aleix Espargaró – a race winner with a distinguished career, but perhaps lacking the killer instinct of a Pecco Bagnaia or Marc Márquez.
With little competition around, apart from the esoteric and niche GP Bikes on PC – which lacks licensing, although the modding community does its best to make up for that – there’s a degree of complacency on show here. Nothing, other than being a slick, feature-rich experience, particularly elevates the genre.
On track
This year, a major new feature is the ability to switch between an ‘arcade’ mode and a ‘pro’ mode for the riding physics.
The latter remains nearly identical to last year’s MotoGP 24, relying heavily on hours of dedication and setup tweaking before you can race smoothly. The top-class bike is perpetually writhing around beneath you like a cat avoiding a bath, braking distances are lengthy and wheelspin aplenty.
Mercifully, Moto2 and Moto3 are much calmer.
The pinnacle of this sport shouldn’t be an easy ride, especially if the game is trying to offer an authentic experience. Yet, I just can’t help but think TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 does a much better job at delivering a simulation bike handling experience, despite its obvious graphical flaws and knowing that comparing Superbikes to MotoGP isn’t a like-for-like discussion.
As expected, the arcade mode is much more approachable, making it much more difficult to fall off your steed. But otherwise, this feels like a slight tweak of some physics parameters and added rider assists rather than a truly groundbreaking increase in accessibility.
Welcome, just not committed enough to make the MotoGP games more pick-up-and-play friendly.
This is especially true thanks to a woeful tutorial and general lack of explanation for newcomers. During the introduction, riding technique is not touched upon, meanwhile, the MotoGP Academy simply boils down to hot laps at a track rather than a series of lessons.
So, a deliberate change to the riding dynamics to appease a wider audience is blighted by missing help. Shame.
But, hey, at least you can now select an ingoncurious podium celebration dance…
Flashy features, lack of depth
This addition is an allegory that defines the game: too much flash, not enough focus on important features.
For this season, flat track, minibikes and motard have been added as fun events to break up the career grind, run in single race events or even online multiplayer.
The environments are particularly stunning, really showcasing the Unreal Engine 5 graphics with mountainous backdrops. Shame the handling doesn’t match up to the breathtaking views. In the arcade setting, the flatack bikes tend to avoid sliding, and in pro, they snap too much. The minibikes are equal parts imprecise as they are cute.
Nine years ago, the MotoGP 2016 game was actually branded Valentino Rossi: The Game, and while grand prix racing purists rolled their eyes, the expansion into the Doctor’s hobbies was an inspired move. Here, the flat track was enormous fun, with the player able to flow from one gravel-strewn turn to the next.
In 25, it can feel like you’re fighting a physics system too set in its MotoGP ways.
Your AI-controlled opponents, meanwhile, seem to be able to glide on dirt, easily in a controlled drift, and find extra turn-in bite for the minibikes.
That quirk, frustratingly, isn’t just in these extra modes, but the main world championship with the pro physics – your competitors seem to serenely glide through turns. It feels as if a less complex physics system is used for the AI-controlled opponents.
The difficulty seems in need of further balancing once more, a regular complaint during the launch window of this gaming series.
Using the adaptive AI with arcade physics, you can win races at a canter, and despite claiming that they will learn your speed, they don’t catch up in the next race. You can at least manually override their prowess level, even if I feel these levels still need further balancing.
At least there is cross-platform multiplayer for PC alongside PlayStation and Xbox this time, thanks in part to the use of an Epic Games Account. While we were able to test lobbies, during the review period, the PC element of the cross-play was not yet working, sadly.
Off-track admin
Elsewhere, there are further tweaks to the career mode, where you create a fictional rider and try to fight your way to be champion.
The structure is relatively straightforward, and much like this game’s predecessor, there is a rider market. At the end of the season, some racers will retire, others will move up from lower categories (a much-needed new feature), and others will simply swap teams.
But, once again, it comes at the cost of being able to create your own team, and subsequent junior squads, which robs an element of immersion.
Now, your rivals will have an emoji displayed above their in-race icon. You may think that if you bump into them, or are overtaken by them, this may change. It doesn’t. This is linked to how you reply to them on a banal and faux social media feed, or achieve race results, or challenge targets.
It feels a little disconnected, as if there’s half an idea about a true rival system where a rider may become retaliatory to your actions, for instance.
Bike development is refreshed this year, with another fake conversation, this time with engineers. However, this debriefing system robs you of full control over the R&D path and falls further and further away from the F1 game’s more detailed, and thus rewarding, approach. At least there is now greater scope for improvement over several seasons.
Finishing line
If it sounds like I’m being overly harsh on MotoGP 25, it’s because this is yet another solid entry into the series, but we’d like to see an amazing one instead.
Perhaps of note, sibling Milestone title Monster Energy Supercross recently took a year off the annual grind, before returning for a heavily updated game earlier this year.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the MotoGP games were provided the luxury of a similar move, coming back in 2027 to tie in with the series’ new regulations?
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