MotoGP 25 Review – Listen to that Engine

Over the years, we’ve looked at several of Milestone’s motocross racing games. With as large of a portfolio as theirs, it’s easy to see why they are one of the top developers in the racing genre today. Now, the latest entry in their annual MotoGP series has just been released. Last year, I was a newcomer to the series when I reviewed MotoGP 24. After how much I enjoyed that game, I was excited to see how this year’s game built on top of that, especially with the move to Unreal Engine 5. So, did the change in engine help take this series to the next level, or did such a large shift require some more time in the oven? Let’s find out as we take a look at MotoGP 25.

Arcade Physics

The biggest addition to MotoGP 25 is the new Arcade physics option. This option aims to give players a more casual way to play where all they have to focus on is their acceleration, braking, and turning.

Last year, as a new player, it took me several hours to get the hang of how to drive properly in the game. While I eventually got the hang of it after a handful of hours, it’s likely that others would get frustrated and simply play something else. When I hopped onto MotoGP 25 on the Arcade setting, it only took me about 29 minutes to get right back into the rhythm of the game. I quickly was able to make sharp turns that last year took me hours to master.

When I eventually switched back to the full sim option, I was right back where I was when I first started playing a year ago. After a couple laps, I switched back to Arcade and stayed there for the rest of my time with the game. While I’m sure more hardcore fans will still enjoy the Simulation setting, the Arcade playstyle is a very welcome addition for casual players like me.

Race Off Events

The other major addition are the new Race Off events. Three new racing disciplines have been added that you can take part in off of the official tracks. Each of these come with their own unique bikes, tracks, visuals, audio, and physics. These new disciplines are Flat Track, Minibike, and Motard. Flat Track are dirt bike races. In these races, you have to learn how to drift around curves on the dirt track, similar to Lightning McQueen in the first Cars movie. It’s definitely a fun change of pace from the usual races and is the most unique of the three new race types.

Minibike, on the other hand, is the most similar to the main races of three new disciplines. Here you’re riding a smaller version of the bikes you ride in the main races. Because of this, it feels somewhat similar to the main races, however you are able to make tighter turns, and the timing is a bit more forgiving.

Motard is the middle point between Flat Track and Minibike, while still feeling quite unique compared to the main races. These bikes require a good deal of work to keep control of though. You need to watch how much you accelerate, or you’ll risk flipping your bike backwards.

Career Mode

Career Mode in MotoGP 25 felt, in a word, lackluster. It just felt very bare bones compared to last year. It’s hard to put my finger on what exactly caused me to feel this way. I think the biggest factor is the change to how you upgrade your bike. Instead of spending points to choose which part of your bike you upgrade, you now have debriefs with your engineer.  In these conversations, you can tell him what changes you want to make to the bike. However, there is no feedback on how exactly your bike is changed based on your conversation. No matter how many times I told my engineer the engine needed more power because I was getting killed in the straightaways, the bike always felt exactly the same. There was no way for me to see that the bike was gradually getting better. I just kept having these repetitive conversations that seemed to change nothing.

With bike upgrades becoming less involved, there really isn’t much to do outside of the actual races. The Race Off events are available at certain points in the season for you to participate in. Competing in these races lets you unlock new cosmetics for your rider.

Transfer System

The transfer system returns after being introduced last year. Now, riders can not only transfer teams, but also transfer between MotoGP, Moto 2, and Moto 3. Besides this, it doesn’t seem like this system was expanded upon at all. The transfer rumor screen is still here, but I never saw any rumors show up on it even late in the season when the social media page was talking about how there were rumors about me switching teams.

The actual process of transferring in the offseason isn’t as impactful as it’s built up to be. I feel like the process should be more than just a single screen in between seasons that you could accidentally click past. I say that because that’s exactly what I did.

Presentation/Performance

Presentation in MotoGP 25 is very similar to how it was in MotoGP 24. If you liked how the game looked and sounded last year, you’re going to like it again this year. The game also has a lot of the same cutscenes and UI design that we saw last year.

There was one thing that stood out to me that just did not look good in this game. In the Flat Track races, the bikes kick up a lot of dirt as they accelerate and turn. This dirt that is being kicked up does not look good at all. It looks like something straight out of a PS2 game. It felt very out of place compared to how good the rest of the game looked visually.

Performance wise, the game ran flawlessly during my time with it. I reviewed this game on a base PS5 and didn’t have any crashes or major bugs. Rumble features on the PS5 controller also felt amazing and really helped to immerse me even more into the game.

Conclusion

MotoGP 25 is a game that is definitely trying to attract more casual players into the series. With the addition of the Arcade experience, new race types, and simplified bike upgrades, the series is definitely trying to help ease new players into things.

However, in this push to bring in a new audience, the game doesn’t seem to offer enough to keep more established fans of the series satisfied. Career Mode feels stripped down with not much to do outside of the actual races.

If you’ve wanted to hop into the series for the first time, this could be one of the better opportunities to do so. However, if you’ve been playing these games for a while, you may stick with MotoGP 24 until this game gets a decent discount. At launch, I don’t feel there is enough to warrant a full price purchase.