Grab your goggles and helmet, and get ready for some muddy fun on a host of powerful bikes, Monster Energy Supercross 6, the latest instalment of the annual Official Videogame series is back.
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Like any sports title established enough to warrant an annual release, there is only one real question. Can Monster Energy Supercross: The Official Videogame 6 raise the bar and innovate enough to entice fans to part with their money all over again?
Track Date
Monster Energy Supercross: The Official Videogame 6 is the most polished instalment to date.
This was probably helped by developers trimming their yearly motocross output down a bit. The studio looks to have left their MXGP series (the official FIM Motocross World Championship series) in the pits this year.
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Fans of the sport will get a real kick from Italian developers, Milestone, getting the most from the official license of the Supercross series in terms of riders, bikes and tracks.
Though oddly, even though the 2023 season is well underway in the real world, the game is actually built around the 2022 season’s teams and bikes.
Familiar Supercross Engine
Weekend mud warriors will be very familiar with the gameplay here, as Monster Energy Supercross 6: The Official Videogame moves things ever so slightly forward, and is very much an evolution of things, more than a reinvention.
The racing engine, the meat of the game, feels much the same as past games. To the point that trying that it’s tough to really feel a difference over last year’s iteration when at the handlebars.
Accessible Biking
Monster Energy Supercross 6 lets lets you race anywhere along the arcade or sim spectrum depending on your mood or skill level.
There is also a fairly deep assistance system to help everyone from newcomers to rusty returning pros, which you can pick and choose just how much of a helping hand the game will give you race to race.
And, of course, you can go freehanded on track, though at its most sim, it can be forgiving at times and brutal at others.
A Chassis around the Engine
Monster Energy Supercross 6 doesn’t do anything truly mind blowing in the new features side of things. But it adds a few things to exploit the engine a little more.
There’s a new Rhythm attack mode where you gun it down a number of whoops (long set of evenly spaced “bumps”, usually about a couple feet tall) in a head-to-head shootout race. It has a real vibe of something more in tone with the likes of the MX vs. ATV series.
Supercross Free Roam
The Supercross Park has also seen a bit of work, building on the foundations of last year. The original park was a fun wide-open area to mess around in, but there was no real reason to keep you hanging around there once boredom set in.
Milestone have also taken a page from the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater play book. Insofar as Monster Energy Supercross 6 comes with a handful of side activities to keep you busy.
The whole area is a more interesting place to play around in on the whole than last year’s free roam area with its mix of terrains and surfaces. There is even a Forza Horizon-style outpost to visit and tinker around with your bike.
New Rider
The robust tutorial mode called ‘Futures Academy’ is back. The academy does a good job at teaching you the ropes and core ideas of moto and supercross racing, with a little help from motocross legend Jeremy McGrath.
McGrath will help guide you through the skills you’ll need from the most basic techniques and concepts. Though beware, he’s a bit wooden at times.
McGrath will also dish out challenge events where you can bag stars, which you can then use to unlock more mini-games or races, which then can get you skill points to upgrade your ride. It’s a fun and engaging gaming loop as you’ll do a few career races, then head to McGrath and then upgrade and repeat.
Supercross Career
Career mode has been tweaked to now link and tie in a lot of elements from the past games to deliver a more streamlined affair.
It’s still not on the level of career modes seen in other AAA licensed racing series like Formula 1 or WRC. Monster Energy Supercross 6 just lacks that level of depth that other licensed petrol-fuelled games have.
Many things like upgrades and the like are handled in an overly simplistic way, you’ll have seen all the career has to offer after a few seasons. The addition of other modes and the expansion of the Supercross Park mode offset the relatively light career mode.
Rival Tracking
The fan’s favourite track editor also returns. Again, you can (and probably will) spend hours creating, and then sharing your dream mud bowls with the community.
But, unless you are a hardcore builder you would hard pressed to spot anything different here from last year’s release. Nevertheless, it’s still a hell of a powerful tool in the right hands.
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Multiplayer now features cross-play across a number of modes, as well as there being a new online ranking system for you to try and make you mark on.
Inching Forward
Milestone have moved things forward ever so slightly here, since last year’s game and it’s very much more of the same in a lot of ways, however it delivers a solid racing experience. Monster Energy Supercross 6 – The Official Videogame plays it very safe on the grand scheme of things with last year’s being a bolder instalment on the new content and features front.
That said, if it’s not broke don’t fix it and though the game is a solid offering, it might not do enough to pull back in the hardcore. However, newcomers will walk in on the most accomplished and polished game in the series to date.