Talk to me about anything remotely Formula 1-based, and I’ll be chewing your ear off for hours. Whether it’s spending too much of my time watching the real-world races, tearing it up virtually in F1 24, or indeed getting into the reeds with F1 Manager 2024, I’m what I’d call an F1 fanatic, and what others would call ‘needlessly obsessed’.
What this hasn’t translated to, thus far, is a passion for motorsport of the two-wheeled variety. So, what better way to try and remedy this than by taking in the latest and greatest in motorcycle racing games, in the form of MotoGP 24!
And even without knowing my Pedro Acosta’s from my Francesco Bagnaia’s, it’s pretty easy to tell that MotoGP 24 is a more than capable racing sim that embraces the ridiculously exciting, adrenaline-pumping, downright dangerous sport that is MotoGP in all its glory.
With 2024’s edition of the annual MotoGP series developed and published by Milestone, the buzzword powering MotoGP 24 is undoubtedly ‘accessibility’. Whether you have never even seen what these powerful vehicles can do, or are fully integrated into the MotoGP world as a veteran of the sport, Milestone likes to emphasise that anyone and everyone can pick up a controller and hoon it around the tracks in their newest experience.
In fact, before you can involve yourself in the many ways to play MotoGP 24, you can first try out the bikes with varying degrees of aid. Ranging from Simplified, which basically sees you holding down the right trigger to accelerate and doing a bit of steering, all the way up to Pro, which throws in manual gear changes and the like, don’t be disheartened if you have to start off on the bottom rung of the assists ladder. Like all good racing sims, MotoGP 24 slowly becomes addictive as you get more and more accustomed to how the bikes handle, and you start to remove the assists. Should you require it, the hand-holding that MotoGP provides is very much appreciated, and of course the level of customisation with regards to assists is suitably vast.
There is, however, quite a lot of assumed knowledge required in order to get the most out of MotoGP 24, and little of this is provided, owing to no proper tutorial being present. For example, understanding just how to take a certain race line, the fact that you need to get a good exit out of corners, and how best to overtake your competitors on track is something that’s never really explained. In such a delicate position, where any slight deviation off-track or the lightest of touches with another bike can throw you off your vehicle, expect to be using YouTube videos a lot of the time to understand how to stay on your bike!
I won’t claim to have taken a Yamaha YZR500 around Silverstone before, but I do know a good handling system when I feel one. You’ll be delighted to hear, therefore, that the handling in MotoGP 24 is top-notch, with every corner needing a different amount of leaning-in to hit the apex properly, and get the best exit out the other side. You’ll also be able to change some of your fundamental bike settings on the fly, perfect for adapting during a race.
One of the best features I’ve seen within MotoGP 24 is undoubtedly the Guided setup feature: this allows you to return to the pits and communicate with your mechanics as to a particular issue on-track. They will then amend the bike accordingly, letting you know what they tinkered with. This is a great quality of life amendment that can allow you to tailor your bike to your needs (for example, perhaps you want it a bit more oversteer-y than understeer-y) without needing to know exactly which metric needs to be adjusted.
The bikes also sound great, as you can hear them revving up as you move through the gears, and sputter as you take a corner and downshift. Although, I hope you really like the sound of the engines, as that’s all you’ll be hearing during a race. There’s no commentary, team radio communications or anything of the sort beyond the bits and pieces in the build-up to a race. Quickly will anyone but the biggest of engine-sound lovers put on a podcast or some music during the races, I reckon.
MotoGP 24 knows that not everyone is familiar with how the real-world MotoGP seasons operate. The game’s detailed Career Mode pulls off something that I have rarely seen in a racing sim career mode, which is to break down your season into chunks, creating a key goal within each chunk that progresses an underlying storyline. As someone with basically no knowledge of how points are accrued in races, how promotion from Moto2 and Moto3 (the junior feeder series of MotoGP) works, and how a race weekend plays out, MotoGP 24 does a stellar job in explaining all of this in a captivating way.
Upon booting up your own Career, you’ll design a rider from a number of preset faces, and get to design your own helmet, race suit, and decals. There’s of course a few premade options, as well as the opportunity to download creations from the online community. The decal editor does exactly what it needs to do, allowing you to add multiple layers to your creation. For my cocky upstart rider, all I needed was to download a monstrous looking helmet from the community and I was set!
You’ll then receive your first chunk of races, which will take place in the slower Moto3 series. How you place in these first few races will determine which kind of teams are looking to sign you for the upcoming season. Do you stay in Moto3 and ply your trade, waiting for a big move? Perhaps you’ll take a step up to Moto2? Or, let’s be honest, we all want the biggest transfer possible, and that’ll be to one of the iconic MotoGP teams. The Riders Transfer Market is one of the biggest new additions to MotoGP 24, creating new team-mates, rivalries and storylines as the season progresses. This all plays out in the game’s fictional social network, within which you can communicate with other drivers – make friends, forge new rivalries; we all know the real talking happens out on the track.
Also brand-new to MotoGP 24 is the Adaptive Difficulty system. This alters the difficulty of your AI opponents race-to-race, based on performance in prior races. Overall, Career Mode is the most fleshed-out element of MotoGP 24, showing off the best of Adaptive Difficulty, the Riders Transfer Market and the social element of MotoGP to provide the ultimate immersive experience. One can only wish that those making career modes in other sports games will sit up and listen.
As well as your standard Grand Prix, Championship and Time Trial modes, allowing you to take control of your favourite real-world rider in a set of races or timed lap, there’s of course your standard multiplayer fare present. Racing purists will be happy to see that local 2-player split-screen remains included (unfortunately not a given nowadays, it must be said), and there’s a plethora of online multiplayer options. These range from casual races in lobbies, to the most interesting elements of LiveGP. LiveGP is the ranked arm of MotoGP 24’s multiplayer, seeing players take on qualifiers and races at set times in the day, against others of a similar rank. Slowly but surely, you’ll climb up the ranked ladder and top the leaderboards.
At present, MotoGP 24’s ranked calendar sees between four and six events taking place each day, at a variety of tracks. With 21 tracks to compete on, set all across the world and visually very similar to their real-world counterparts, there’s a ton of things to master if you are looking to become the best rider out there.
Coming into it, I expected quite a lot from MotoGP 24, seeing as it is the officially licensed game of such a popular motorsport, and this is certainly not Milestone’s first rodeo. Well, the Italian developers have certainly delivered, with a number of features (namely the Guided setup system and approach to Career Mode) that a lot of other racing sims should certainly take inspiration from.
Although there still needs to be a proper tutorial present in order to entice the most bike-shy of gamers, if you are a fan of MotoGP, or are interested in the sport, then MotoGP 24 is the best way to get involved virtually.
The adaptive AI is not new, every moto gp game from 20 on has it. The only way to tell how good you are is hotlaps on the leaderboards. Setting the ideal base difficulty and adjusting as you go through the game is the hard part.