Milestone is back for another year with their latest installment of MotoGP 23, and this year’s title did not disappoint – It’s jam-packed with content.

MotoGP 23 includes all the riders from the 2023 season, including the MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3, and MotoE categories of the championships, which takes the rideable roster up to a whopping 80 professional riders. It also includes all the tracks from the 2023 season, so you can race around the iconic tracks you see on TV with some of your favorite riders, or you can use a rider you’ve created.

You can begin your journey in the Moto3 Championship, working your way through to Moto2, and then move further into the MotoGP, or you can jump straight into the MotoGP. From an immersion standpoint, starting from Moto3 and climbing your way into the ranks is fun. The social element to the Career mode is good fun, letting your rivals follow you and starting that little bit of beef with them to build some hype towards the race. They have also introduced something in the career mode called “Turning Points”. This new system shows how faithful you might be and how much of a G.O.A.T you might be.

There are four options that you might be given throughout the Career mode. ‘Jump Category’ allows you to jump up to the next championship. The second option is to change teams, allowing you to show your allegiance or get rid of them quicker than light.

You can also direct bike development, which allows you to make minor changes to the motorcycle and what you are doing in the race. The final option you might be graced with is “Become A Legend,” which I’m sure you can figure out.

The bike development system was something that surprised me because you can direct the development of what your team’s bike is going to do, and the other AI-controlled teams will do theirs slightly differently, thanks to the powerful AI system added into this year’s title. The enhanced AI doesn’t stop with the teams directing bike development – it always goes to the track with the newly added dynamic weathering, so you could be starting in perfect racing conditions and then some rain may come along.

If the game is not already realistic enough with the handling and difficulty settings, the weather throws another spanner in the works. The dynamic weather also comes into play with how the bikes perform, and if the weather gets too bad, you might even be made to go into the Pits. This will give you some time to change the tyres, or talk with the team and get a game plan for when you go flying back out onto the track in the wet conditions.

One of the new features I was not a huge fan of and turned off almost instantly was the new “Neural Aid System”. This is a new AI-based system that has been added to help with steering, braking, and handling, which is designed to help make it accessible to everyone. This can be tuned, but I feel that the experience is better with it all turned off, just so you can feel every corner.

The system is good for someone new to the MotoGP games because you can see if you are accelerating too much through corners, or if you’re leaning the bike over a little too much so you don’t end up in the kitty litter.

If you are new to the series, don’t stress, because with this new feature, they have also brought back the MotoGP Academy, and this breaks down some tracks and teaches you the basics and more advanced features of the game, such as the lean of the bike or when to accelerate around a bend.

When it comes to multiplayer, you have a couple of options. The online mode runs very smoothly and is full of incredible racers. It makes it difficult to achieve a podium finish, and I constantly end up playing dodge’em cars with people, even if they didn’t wanna play it back. If you are not interested in jumping online, and you’d rather have some family or friends over to play, there’s the option of local co-op, which is some good fun. I was able to talk my partner into grabbing the controller for a couple of races and then I proceeded to annihilate her.

The customization options are amazing, and it allows you to choose almost everything, right down to what brand gear you want your rider to wear. The only downside is the preset face models, but you barely see this anyway, so it’s not that big of a deal. It brought the immersion of being your own rider and not using some generic gear that you saw in previous titles.

The graphics of this game were magical, to say the least. You jump from the main menu which looks so realistic it’s not funny, to being on the track where the bikes, riders, and tracks are packed with detail. I could not be more keen to see the finished product because the developers have done a fantastic job making this game look and feel so real. The bikes and their components are the best I have ever seen, with details such as bolt heads on the motors, and decals shining while you are racing. I was super impressed.

The developers did not skip on anything in this year’s title. Immersion in games like this plays a big factor – I want to feel like I’m racing and this hit the nail right on the head. The commentary team sounds fantastic with their calls and commentating on the races, and hearing the bikes roar to life, or even hearing something as simple as the gears changing just sucked me into the title.

The controls are something you need to spend a few hours getting used to if this is your first time touching a MotoGP game. There’s a lot to learn, from breaking down body weight to leaning on the bike. You will spend some time using the new system in this year’s game and will most likely some time at the academy before you win a race, because 9 times out of ten, you will find yourself in the sand bunkers lining the tracks. Balance is a crucial part of this title and you will find yourself leaning over too far into corners.

I’ll forever love seeing new MotoGP games as they’re full of fast, action-packed racing, taking away the relative safety of cars and adding the risk factor of bikes. If you are a MotoGP fan, or even just like racing games, Milestone has created an amazing racing game full of fun and tears.

Written by: Hayden Nelson