MotoGP 21

MotoGP 21 is a fine racer that’s realistic to a fault at times. It’s not beginner friendly and you’ll certainly need to be a part of the two-wheeled racing community to appreciate this niche, but it’s good fun all the same. A bit of practice and patience will do newcomers well, while veteran speedsters will feel at home with the familiar tracks, riders, and machines.

MotoGP 21 is yet another slow, tentative step forward for the bleary-eyed series. There are clear improvements visually, with the physics, and with a few new features to aid realism. However, for every improvement, some areas are showing their age or have abandonment issues. The tutorial is as absorbing and educational as a brick wall, the career mode just feels shallow, and finding that balance for non-simulation purists can be a chore. Still, these are balanced by the strong racing when you find those perfect settings and the improving AI. Also, the use of the PlayStation 5's DualSense controller is brilliant, putting the feel of the bike into your hands.

A new tutorial system makes MotoGP 21 a good year for new riders to jump aboard this long-running motorcycle racing sim, though its other additions are slim enough that returning players will probably feel let down. One of the biggest new features, making you retrieve your bike after a spill, won’t be a good idea until the AI has to do it as well, but the tweaks to the bike handling are notable improvements to what is still most certainly the best-feeling MotoGP game to date.

Milestone's MotoGP series has taken some significant steps forward in recent years; expanding the career mode, making the bike handling more realistic and lively, but it's a little tougher to see the signs of progress in MotoGP 21. This is a slighter evolution of the series, with the biggest changes the ones that you can see from the jump to the new generation consoles and, if you're on PS5, feel through the DualSense controller.

Stagnation instead of progress: Milestone once again lives up to its reputation of preferring fast recycling instead of developing the franchise in a meaningful way and addressing points of criticism in terms of AI, among other things.

MotoGP 21 is a fine racing game, that surpasses its predecessor in a couple of subtle ways. However, that's not enough to truly set this game apart from the competition. Its content is rather limited, the AI still makes odd decisions and collisions just don't feel like... well, collisions. Milestone's on the right path, but it hasn't quite reached its destination yet.

Disappointing ! Milestone was off to a good start with its pretty MotoGP 20, full of promise with finally a career mode worthy of the name. But instead of polishing it, the Italian studio has put the diamond in the next-gen's garage this season. MotoGP 21 is stagnating in the gameplay, the fault of the sets and animations still unchanged and quite dull, an AI that falls back into its faults causing too many accidents and the absence of a split screen mode. Worse, the title regresses in content, puts the historical mode to oblivion and brings no notable novelty to the career. Even the shimmering visual identity of MGP20 has given way to a dreary ersatz menu, enough to assure us of one thing: the next installment in the series will be expected around the corner.