Thank you Milestone S.r.l. for sending us this game to review!

Racing games these days are getting so good that it seems like improvements are smaller and smaller - that isn't to say that things are bad, but rather they are so good, and getting so close to real life, that each game is more incremental than revolutionary. So here we are - with an incredibly polished racing game that looks amazing, with a great set of tracks, and a career mode that does its best to simulate what it's like to be a professional biker with a full pit crew and other management. Welcome to MotoGP 21!

MotoGP 21 takes you through the 2021 motorcycle racing calendar, called, curiously enough, the MotoGP. The MotoGP, Moto2, and Moto3 classes are all included, along with some minor ones like Moto Rookies. Each actual real-life racer from each class for the 2021 season are included, along with their simulated real-world bikes, which ends up being more than 120 total. There are also 20 tracks, which is again the same as the official MotoGP season. These are located all around the world – from the USA to Europe to South America to Australia, and much in between. Only Sub-Saharan Africa (and of course Antarctica) are not represented. Most major racing bike companies (presumably all used by actual racers) are also present.

The game modes available includes the various quick play modes, like Grand Prix, where you play an entire weekend race, Time Trial where you just hit the track for the best time, and Championship, where you play an entire season, one race after another. The career mode is where the meat of the simulation aspects of the game is accessed. It is here where we not only play through the entire season similar to the quick play mode, but also manage your crew, research upgrades for your bike, and negotiate various contracts. It’s a nice addition that offers motivation to not only keep racing, but to place well, as doing so earns you much more money, as well as more lucrative contracts. You can also progress from the Moto3 class, up to Moto2, then up to the MotoGP, to be the best of the best.

Of course, if you are like me, you may find that your initial skill level is nowhere near that required to even complete the race, much less place in the top half, which is a common contract requirement.  In many games, I have a tendency to be pretty aggressive with the throttle – this doesn’t work, because you need to learn to slow down into the corners.  Then I learned to play cautiously, making sure not to crash – nope, that’s not enough either.  Keep in mind this is with almost all assists on, and on the lowest difficulty level.  This game is not for the faint of heart – or at least those not willing to put in lots of practice.  This is the kind of game that you treat like a sport, rather than a game.  That is to say: practice, practice, practice!

Unfortunately, one thing that somewhat takes away from the simulation slightly is the control options – they are basically just keyboard and Xbox compatible gamepad. If you are one who likes to race with a more complex racing rig, you might want to look elsewhere, as DirectInput devices are not supported. That said, if you can emulate Xbox gamepads, I’m sure you can make it work. Keyboard is supported and functions like you would expect, but I can’t imagine why anyone would do that to themselves on purpose – bring along a gamepad if you’re going to play this game. Thankfully, menus do accept mouse input, to make configuring the game easier.

Another minor complaint is the character creation. When you make a new career, you can make an avatar of yourself - and man are they uncanny valley. This is a phenomena where something is meant to look fairly realistic, but doesn't quite make it, and looks spooky or unsettling instead. This happens with the eyes, as they look really unnatural. Otherwise everything looks fine, and the racers look great - as long as they have a helmet on.

The racing experience itself is quite engaging. The tracks, environment, and racers look great. You can hit other racers and knock them off their bike, but you are penalized. While racing I found myself far more likely to fall off my own without help, anyway. As you might expect, motorcycles can go crazy fast on a dime, so most of the challenge is managing braking, where you absolutely can flip your bike, and entry and exist angle, to facilitate deeply leaning into each curve. There are quite a few assists available to make the game easier, but they can only do so much; if you intend to really master the simulation, consider keeping on as few assists as possible to properly get used to how the physics model works. Otherwise, you may quickly find yourself making bad habits before you realize it. One time when I played online, well, let's just say I crashed a lot more than I did during practice offline! (To be fair that could also be in part because of the much more powerful bikes I had in multiplayer, also.)

Joining that online race was very similar to joining a single Grand Prix weekend. When I first entered I was a spectator - I could watch the two other racers at the time do their practice runs, until they completed that free play. (This is unique to online, as you might expect.) There can be several free play times on the track before the final race in single player as well, as this was one of those. Next was the qualifier, and the racers on the track were the other humans along with some AI, and I quickly found myself at the back of the pack after crashing a few dozen times each lap. (I told you I was bad/the game is hard.)

I didn't stick around too much after that first lap, because I had no chance - but the format is remarkably similar to what it's like in single-player quick play Grand Prix or in Career mode.  There are two qualifiers; you have two chances to place better.  If you are like me, when the race event finally begins, you'll be last place; I couldn't qualify, but the game lets you race anyway, at a disadvantage of being in the back.  Even on the easiest difficulty level, I hadn't practiced enough to be able to get past last place when I completed a race against the AI.  (The feeling when you get lapped by the guys in first is always great.)  Coming in last does mean you earn far less money, and lose reputation.  Gaining it back through success is critical if you want to get anywhere in your MotoGP career.

As I mentioned before, you can manage your staff and upgrade your bike in Career mode. This includes assigning a personal manager who negotiates contracts and team, as well as other members, like chief engineers, telemetrists, and do research back at the headquarters. Research includes things like improving the ending, frame, aerodynamics, or electronics. These are managed in two different ways: people assigned to earning research points, and people assigned to spending earned points. Properly divided, you always have people working to make your bike faster and better, which takes time - and sometimes you have to race, whether that upgrade is ready or not. Thankfully you can view the calendar at any time, and progress it as needed to move along the simulation of the racing season.

In the pit, you can customize your bike there as well, changing tire types and hardness levels, ten different suspension settings that includes hardness, oil, compression settings, extension levels, and more that I don't have a full grasp on. You can adjust the geometry of the bike - what level of tilt each section has, and more common things like the transmission gear ratios, the ECU (electronic controls like traction control), and fuel levels, all of which modify the feel of the bike. On top of this, you can adjust all of the ECU settings during a race - you can bias for power (at the expense of fuel efficiency - and yes, you can run out of gas), adjust breaking strength (at the cost of making flipping easier), and so on. There is a ton to take in, and the effort involved to make this simulation as realistic as possible is quite obvious once you really dive into it. On top of this, when it rains, the physics change dramatically - so you really do have to adjust for the weather.

Despite all of this, the actual racing itself feels really solid and is quite enjoyable - even if crashing is not always easy to avoid, until you learn the ropes. This is a game that gives you plenty of opportunity to learn, if you keep racing and test driving until you figure out how it all works together. Doing so can be quite rewarding, but also time consuming - don't go into this game expecting to be winning races in a few hours; if you are looking for something like that, I'd recommend a racer with a more arcade-style focus.

As you might expect, racing games are always fairly clean. I was surprised to find a female pit crew member with a partially opened zipper down the middle, so there is a hint of cleavage there. Of course you can crash and go flying, and hit other racers, but other than that it's squeaky clean, assuming you don't meet someone online who is rude over voice chat. When I played online, they were speaking over voice chat in a different language.

From a technical perspective, it ran wonderfully on my high end gaming rig at 4K resolution. It can scale down, but there are limits - even at 720p and 30 frames per second, my integrated Intel iGPU on my GPD Win Max barely did the job. It did look fantastic on that high-end gaming rig, though. That said, I had to lower the rendering resolution from 150% to 125% (or even 100%) at 4k on a RTX 3080 when it was raining, despite it running flawlessly at those higher rendering settings at 4K on a sunny day.

MotoGP 21 is an enjoyable, but incredibly challenging motorcycle racing game that is as rewarding as the time you are willing to put into it. If you just like driving around on neat-looking tracks, sure you can do that - but to really master it, you'll have to put in the time and effort a game like this really deserves and requires. If you do so, you'll be rewarded with a game that looks and plays great.