Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 25

After skipping the release of a game last year, the Monster Energy Supercross series has finally abandoned its numbered, annual titles and has now joined every other sports game on the market with a year at the end of its name. This is Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 25. Despite the change of name and the break, the game is unfortunately neither better nor worse than before.

And this is where my biggest problem with the game - and the series - lies. Every game has been fun to play; it's very entertaining, but every year feels like déjà vu. And as usual, there are a lot of new features offered that ultimately don't make much difference.

The big change is the new graphics engine. The Milan-based team behind the game now has Unreal Engine 5 at their disposal, something that I hope can further improve the game in the coming years. What they themselves want to highlight with this engine is a new dynamic system for terrain deformation. This causes grooves to form in the track surface where riders are travelling, especially on turns, providing an extra challenge in how these sections are driven. It also provides a constantly changing surface lap-after-lap. This has apparently been one of the most requested things from the game's community. The other thing that the developers have now been able to implement is neural networks (AI), which influence how rivals drive during the races. The computer-controlled racers adjust their tactics and racing lines immediately, learning as they go. This makes for smarter opponents, even if it often feels like some are just out to overtake me.

Of course, this is most noticeable in the biggest game mode, Career Mode. This year, the setup is that you start in SMX Next, where you run a few races before it's on to 250SX, and then 450SX. Each season is divided into four acts where each act ends with a so-called "Climax race" that ties together what happened earlier in the act. There are challenges to overcome, such as finishing in a better position than your teammate or coming in at least a certain position, and if you manage to meet these, you will take a different path in the story than if you fail. There are even path choices that send you into different little side stories.

What keeps the Career feeling fresh, however, are various small races between the regular ones in the championship. In previous years, it has been race-after-race-after-race until a final winner is crowned. Now there are side events, set in different locations around the US to keep you entertained. The first two I encountered were a Rhythm Attack event (introduced in the last game), which is a straight with a hell of a lot of jumps and bumps, held at the site of a space rocket launch in Florida or on a Milestone-invented MX track in the woods near a geyser field. The races that take place outside the traditional venues are a highlight. In total, there are four Rhythm Attack tracks and six motocross tracks.

The part I don't like about the Career Mode is the somewhat forced "get popular on social media" element. The idea is that you win races to gain followers, while you can also reply to tweets and play-pretend on Twitter. How you respond to messages from other drivers affects how they see you and if you're really nasty, things can, in principle, heat up on the track. This can also affect your relationship with different teams, should you want to switch after the season. Generally, I like the Career Mode, as they have tried something new and that's appreciated.

Otherwise, there's not much to experience in terms of big game modes. There is only what you would've expected from a game like this... There's an offline mode (in addition to the Career), plus there's also the possibility to drive single races, Rhythm Attack, hop into a championship, and take on time trials. It's possible to drive in split-screen (for only two people), which is appreciated as it has not been the norm in recent years in racing games. Online however, you can jump into unranked races or boot up a private lobby with up to 16 players. And that's about it... Except for a training mode, of course.

What has been removed is the open, small world that you could drive around and play in freely. Take a jump here, explore a little there. What in Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 6 was called Supercross Park is now nowhere to be found. It's possible that the decision to axe it came from player feedback, as it was honestly only fun to play for a few minutes at a time, but it's still one less game mode than before.

Monster Energy Supercross 25 does retain the entertaining feeling of prior instalments. The series has always offered entertaining gameplay, and this year is no different. Whether it's on tracks with long straights and lots of jumps, like Daytona, or more technically challenging venues like Indianapolis with its constant curves, its bridge, and tunnel. This game is always challenging. The game is structured in the classic "easy to play, hard to master" style and I wouldn't be able to guess how many times I've crashed during the review period. Sometimes it's completely natural and bad driving on my part, but I'm blown away by how many times I don't understand why the driver is launched off its bike like someone shot them out of a cannon...

The satisfaction of the gameplay comes instead when I nail the perfect flow, when I take all the jumps just as I should. It's all about correct timing and adjusting body weight to land correctly. Landing on the incline of the next jump, for example, is like driving into a wall, but when I instead land on the decline to enter the next jump in full flow, that's when it starts to feel like some kind of motorised dance.

After a year's hiatus, I probably had too high hopes for the Monster Energy Supercross series' return. It feels like it could have improved even more than it was, but regardless, what we get is a motocross experience that is simply as good as it was before. If I had to describe the driving experience in one word, it would be: Entertaining.