I’ve been a huge racing fan for over 30 years now, and for the most part I stick to racing on four wheels, but I have been known to take a dirt bike for a spin, both in real-life and in video games, but even when a game like MX vs ATV shows up, I almost always head straight for the ATV. Needless to say, I was a bit uneasy going into my review for Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 5. It’s been years since I played a dedicated motorcycle racing game, and even when I did, they were more arcade in nature than something that aspires to be a true simulation. Thankfully Supercross 5 offers up enough variety in difficulty and control assist options that I was able to find my groove surprisingly fast and then it was off to the races…
Obviously, this is the fifth installment in a series that I’ve never played, so I had no assumptions going into the game based on anything other than a somewhat exciting trailer I watched while the game installed itself on my PS5. Starting the game greeted me with a menu that you’d expect to find in any racing game with a Home screen, hubs for Single and Multiplayer racing, and a page to customize your bike and rider and access to the Track Editor where you can create your own tracks or download tracks from the community. The Home screen is a bit of redundancy as it offers quick access to all those other pages only with fewer options. Pressing the DualSense touchpad opens up your Profile screen with access to player and race stats for all the various modes, as well as special SX challenges.
Starting with the Single player component, you have options for Career, Single Event, Championship, Time Attack, and Free Roaming as well as the Futures Academy. The Futures Academy is home to both the main tutorial for the game as well as numerous riding lessons that cover everything from the basics of riding to more advanced lessons like Jump Flow and Scrubs and Whips. Once you have mastered those tactics you can test your skills in the Theory Lessons across multiple events. Ironically, the game doesn’t really enforce or even suggest the tutorial lessons, which actually help a lot. Many of my frustrations would have been eliminated or lessened if I had even done the basics at the academy before diving into a career.
Multiplayer consists of either joining a public lobby or creating your own public or private lobby, and there is even support for split-screen racing for a local challenge. There seems to be a fairly active race community and finding races to join or racers to join my events was seldom an issue. The multiplayer component plays heavily into the Track Editor where you can challenge others to test your tracks and get feedback. The track editor is surprisingly easy to use and reminded me of my childhood putting together those slot racer tracks. The controls and HUD were simple enough and once your creations are uploaded to the community you can start tracking downloads and likes.
The core of the game is the Career mode where you start with creating your rider by tweaking some variables such as build, height, country, and first and last name and a nickname and number for your jersey. Outfits are pretty simple but you can customize through sponsorship affiliations that will add decals to your jersey and bike. There is also an amazing helmet editor that allows you to create some true works of art, but after seeing what was already available in the user-created content I was content to enjoy the works of others rather than try to figure out how to create the perfect multi-layer design of decals and logos. For those moments where your character appears without a helmet you can customize hair and beard style and color, eyes, and a variety of tattoos and piercings. And for the final touch, choose from any of the available Celebration animations for your victory lap.
All of the events fall into one of three classes, 450, 250 West and 250 East, which basically determines the power of the bike and where and what events you are participating in. Most tracks are indoors but some stadiums have open roofs that might allow for rain and wet track conditions. Other events take place outdoors and there are even challenges and free roam potions of the game where you basically get to ride in large non-track environments. Tracks all fall into similar design with plenty of sharp turns, long stretches of bumps known as whoops, and larger hills and ramps where you need to nail the speed and timing to achieve a perfect rhythm so you don’t crash into the front side of a bump or hill. Clean riding and skillful moves earns your points that fuel your riders XP and leveling system that ties into tiered rewards and unlocks.
A racing game is only as good as its controls and coming from a genre where I almost exclusively use a racing wheel and pedals I was left with no choice but to learn how to play this on the DualSense, and for the most part it was pretty intuitive. You can go into the options and make this part of the game as hard or as easy as you’d like with various assists for steering and balance. Motorcycles have front and rear brakes that are controlled independently in real-life and that is a valid option here, but you might want to share those brakes; at least until you have mastered everything else. Optimal use of the clutch is also an important part of maintaining your speed every time you reconnect with the track surface.
One critical aspect of MX racing is mastering your rider’s weight and balance with the right-stick. Leaning side to side helps with sharp turns and moving forward or back will determine how you fly through the air and more importantly, land. Again, there are assists to help you out and you can play the entire game without having to worry about balance and pushing or pulling on the handlebars. While there is an aggressive rumble in the DualSense it doesn’t quite connect you to the action, and the lack of any haptics in the triggers was disappointing.
Supercross 5 looks nice enough but certainly not as next-gen as it could be; obviously due to this being a cross-platform and cross-generation release. The riders look at least a generation old and the dirt tracks aren’t as 3D as they should be. The grooves look painted on and don’t seem to worsen with each lap and certainly don’t affect bike handling. No real dirt is getting kicked up; more of a volumetric tan cloud. What does look incredible are the detailed bike models, especially if you pause and go into Photo mode where you can spin the camera around the bike and appreciate all the detail and even accumulated dirt and mud on the bike and rider.
The presentation is excellent with an overview of the track complete with fireworks and crowds cheering and good commentary, but it all grows repetitive after a few races and you’ll likely skip through these pre-race segments. There is also a good replay system with numerous camera views from both in-game and TV-style shots. In-game views include two chase cams, a handlebar view, and a fantastic helmet view where your visor gets obscured with dirt. The two first-person cameras are as close to VR as you can get without wearing a headset and can easily cause motion sickness.
If you are into MX racing you don’t have a lot of options, although there is a new MX vs ATV coming out later this year. Until then, Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 5 is pretty much the only game in town and while it’s not exactly my cup of tea, I did have some moments of fun, most of them not in the actual racing. I did enjoy the challenging lessons of Futures Academy and collecting the letters to spell SHAPE in the outdoor levels was always exhilarating, always coming down to the final seconds for the final letter. My biggest complaint with the actual racing was finding that balance of difficulty for both myself and the racer AI to keep things fun. Most of the time I would shoot to the lead and win by two or more laps, but if I increased the AI difficulty I would come in last place almost every time. The AI is either idiots or unbeatable, and moving through the career that difficulty would scale with progression, making it even harder to find that sweet spot.
I’m not going to say not to buy Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 5, but just be warned that it is a very acquired taste and unlike most other racing games, even motorcycle racing games. It’s also a $60 title on the PS5, so if you are on the fence you might want to wait for a sale. There is a bit of fun to be had with this game, but you’ll spend more time learning to play than actually playing. On the bright side, if you enjoy creating stuff then the track and helmet editors are second to none and will offer hours of enjoyment.