MotoGP 21

Despite technical wobbles, this one justifies its annual release.

This series has taken a turn sim-wards since its move to UnrealEngine in 2018, but this year’s release represents the most noticeable shift in difficulty and realism in years. In particular, changes to suspension and braking make themselves felt in every corner entry and apex, demanding a different approach than last year’s game asked of you.

The main course Milestone offers you is a career mode in which your custom rider graduates from Moto3 through Moto2 and finally to the big leagues – or just picks a ride in the fastest category as a rookie, your call.

In any event, you’re given RPG-like levels of control over your team, earning upgrade points by ticking off objectives in practice sessions and then spending them on bike development. This time you’re even assigning specific members of staff to each upgrade project based on their specialisms. All that inter-team tweaking can be rewarding over the long term, particularly if you take MotoGP

up on its offer to run a completely new team from scratch. There’s not enough here to prevent annualised release fatigue, though.

That’s where the on-track changes come in. However good you were at MotoGP 20, you’re going to have to completely revise your braking technique here, because the physics changes have a profound effect in those few hundred metres before the apex. It’s controller-smashingly easy to apply too much front brake pressure and tip your weight too far forwards, ending up in either a stoppie or a lock-up that sends you sailing past the racing line. The feeling and timing of shifting your rider’s weight from one side of the bike to the other is slower, more precarious and more believable now, too. And with those two new facets of the handling are combined, MotoGP 21 asks you to think one turn ahead, in a very real sense. The frustration is real, then, but the rewards are plentiful.

Even if you hold just a sliver of interest in the exploits of Rossi, and the gang, its meaty career mode can hold you for months, and the uncompromising handling model holds a fascination all of its own.

Milestone’s latest MotoGP is wobbly and unstable in all the right ways, and some of the wrong ones too.