MotoGP 25 Review (Xbox Series X)

STAFF REVIEW of MotoGP 25 (Xbox Series X)

Wednesday, April 30, 2025.
by Brent Roberts

Over the years, racing games have become divided into two primary categories, arcade and simulation. Companies tirelessly, and for seeming unending hours, strive to perfect whatever category their racing game falls into. While we have seen this model repeat itself for decades, nothing has been done for what is quite possibly the most dangerous racing of all, MotoGP. Sure, you may crash at over 100mph on a track in a car, but thankfully you have your roll cage, frame of the car, chassis, helmet and more to protect you. In MotoGP though, if you mess up, all you have is a fireproof racing suit that acts as an organ container and a helmet that keeps your remains of your skull packaged neatly above what is left of your shoulders as you go flying off the bike at insanely high speeds. You really have to question the riders of MotoGP because to see their performances is nothing short of watching Van Gogh paint you a personal portrait; pure mastery. Developers Milestone have taken this mantle upon their shoulders for years to develop the purest racing simulation, and for the longest time it seemed like they were knocking on the door of greatness. Now, with MotoGP 25 I don't think that Milestone just opened the door, but kicked the whole thing in and set the new bar for racing simulation when it comes to bike racing.

First off, it goes without question that MotoGP 25 is absolutely filled to the brim with amazing bike content. From the opening main menu, you have Single Player, Career, Race Off, Multiplayer, and Customization. Within the Single player menu, you have several options: Grand Prix, Championship, Time Trial, MotoGP Academy, and Tutorial. Seeing as I've got about as much chance to stay upright on the bike in a corner as I do beating Gordon Ramsay in a cooking competition, I opted for the tutorial right away. When you load up the tutorial you will be taken through the basics of how the bike handles, and you'll also get firsthand experience with the new physics system (more to come on that later).

After the tutorial I thought that I would be able to dip my knees on the corners like a pro and tame these hyper fast beasts, and after hitting the first corner I realized how little I really knew. That's when I thought I'd look into the tracks themselves and get some practice with the MotoGP Academy. Here I was able to go through every track in the game and practice trying to get the best times. In this mode, tracks are broken down into several timed sections as well as the entire lap. Getting below certain times will award you gold, silver or bronze medals so the objective is quite simple, push yourself to the limit and then take gold on these tracks.

Now I know what you may be thinking right now: if the MotoGP Academy does judge and rank your times, how is this different than time trial? The answer is simple, ghosts. When you race the Time Trial you are racing against the clock for track dominance against other riders from around the world. Pick your track, choose your settings and start your engine as you showcase to the other riders who is the ruler of the track. Time trial is more based off entire laps rather than sections. However, these sections DO matter because if you can start shaving time off them then your overall lap times will start to tumble which increases your success and performance. The Championship mode is where you lace up your shoes and get ready for an intense battle as you take on all 22 tracks in the MotoGP Championship. What is the difference between this and Career you ask? Career mode, which we will get into here shortly, offers a colossal amount of more content and options. If you don't want to invest the hours into the MotoGP Championship, then the Grand Prix mode is where you will want to go as you can tackle each course individually and get the sense of what each race is going to be like if and when you decide to go for the big prize in the Championship.

The Career mode is back again, but this time Milestone has taken things to an entirely next level by revamping almost everything within and bringing some new innovations that add even more touches of realism to the simulator. In the past, you would have almost a scripted A to B pathway of the career, and the only real progress you made was you just going through the motions. Now though, you choose your career and how it plays out. What I mean by that is Milestone has given you a choice because now your career is goal oriented. Do you want to create a rivalry to gain more fame and notoriety? This would go well in showing to the world who is the absolute best. Do you want to pursue a bigger and better contract with a race team? If so, select this choice to pursue and become one of, if not, the highest paid rider in the sport and show them why you're worth every penny. If, however, you're wanting the long goal route, select the prestige option and go for the title of GOAT, because in the end, like Highlander, there can be only one. This dynamic upgrade adds an entirely new level of character development which we rarely see in a racing game of any sort and stands out as a model for other companies to learn from. In my case I opted for Prestige.

If that wasn't enough, the new Career mode also allows you to take your bike R&D to new levels as well, and it's based off your feedback from the track sessions. So basically, after the end of each event you will get a message from your team's engineers asking you about the bike and its performance. Based off your responses you can tailor and customize the bike's performance to match your perfect feeling by upgrading and improving the bike characteristics that give you the best edge to win. It has to be said that after researching and developing new parts for the bike and tuning and tweaking it, your team will not throw you into the race right away, instead you have test sessions that integrate with the race schedule and it's here that you'll be able to put these new updates to the test. You'll need points in order to put into R&D and based off your career, you'll need to excel in order to start gaining points.

Also included in the Career is your ability to start off either in Moto3, Moto2, or the top tier MotoGP class. Remember my amazing success with training and the MotoGP Academy? So, I decided on my first career to jump right into the MotoGP class. You have heard the phrase "failure isn't an option" but in my case it was a certainty. This is thanks to the new styles of gameplay found in MotoGP 25, Arcade or Pro. With Arcade, the game essentially takes your hand and simplifies the controls of the game to give you less things to focus on and makes the game easier to pick up and play. I thought it was not Arcade style and instead opted for Pro (insert ominous foreshadowing here). In the Pro setup you have to manage so much information. Not just your throttle and brake, but what brake do you use (front or back) and then you have to take into account the angle of your ride, speed, the position of your rider's body while in the seat, the amount of technology the bike uses, tire tread, and so much more. If you want to switch between Arcade and Pro, all you have to do is press 'X' to adjust the game experience and configure your settings accordingly.

Each career event is broken down into several days of activity such as Practice, Qualifying and the Race itself. If you are new to these tracks then please take a moment and go through the practice and qualifying events so you can get a feel for the track, the corners, the entering and exit speeds, and if weather is playing a part then learn how the bike feels when not in optimal conditions. Once you start the weekend you can stop in the middle of the weekend or even skip events, however, you will only hurt yourself in the long run because if you are looking for that top position, you won't get it by doing nothing. These weekends are compartmentalized by the following menus: Rider and Team, Paddock, Bike Development, and Transfer Rumors.

The rider and team option shows your overall position and a high-level overview of your rider, their goals, and the progress towards them. The Paddock will show your overall relationship with other drivers. Using several different colored smiley faces, you'll see where you stand with other people and don't worry if you upset people along your way to victory because greatness will do that to the insecure and untalented. The Bike development section of the career provides you with four points of focus: Handling, Power, Stability, Fuel delivery. If you remember I mentioned improving your bike with your engineers after the race, and this is where you will see the outcome of your progress in your research and where you will see either positive or negative performances based on how you did in the race. This is also the first MotoGP game to not put a 'cap' on bike performance so, no, the Ducati will not reign supreme if you find a bike you like and put in time with it to improve it. Basically, you can put effort into any bike in MotoGP 25 and turn it into a track slaying monster of perfection.

Outside of Multiplayer, the last major inclusion in regard to game modes is the new Race Off feature. Here you will find three categories: Flat Track, Motard, and Minibike. In this mode, you will race on a total of 4 original tracks which are spread across two locations. This way you can get to experience different styles of bikes on various tracks, but the most interesting thing about this is that the Race Off mode can either be its own standalone game or it can actually integrate into the game's own Career path. If you choose to partake in the Race Off during the career, you will not only improve your handling with your own bike but unlock some unique liveries and decorative items that are specifically for the off-road helmets.

If you thought that Milestone was done with the improvements of the game, you would be sadly mistaken. Already with more overhauled greatness than we see in some other big name titles, developers decided to inject the graphics with a titanic amount of Unreal 5 beauty, which means that the tracks, bikes, riders, and overall experience is dynamically beautiful whether you're watching the replay or going into photo mode, MotoGP 25 is easily the best looking MotoGP to ever hit a gaming console. If that weren't enough, not only does MotoGP 25 look amazing, but the physics engine of this game has also received the same type of immense overhaul improvement. When you combine that with the new methods that MotoGP uses to track performance in real time, you will see how and why MotoGP 25 has cemented itself as the leader in bike racing simulations.

Milestone has without question listened to its fans, have taken the feedback and absolutely run wild with it. While you can make MotoGP 25 feel like an Arcade racer, when you run it on Pro, you really see all the improvements come together in an incredible package that does 200 mph on the straights and rides the very edge of what is possible on a bike. There are other little touches as well that stand out such as the content itself.

Milestone is delivering the full 2025 rosters of the Moto3, Moto2, and MotoGP, and they will have their real numbers and are even so keen on the details that they will swap the numbers for 1's should you win the Championship. It's rare these days to see a company put such an amazing effort into developing this game to a level unheard of before. They could have taken the easy route and just rehashed the same old game and added a few minor tweaks, but they didn't. Take a bow Milestone, for you have made the undisputed king of motorcycle racing simulation with this latest release of MotoGP 25.

**MotoGP 25 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 8.5 / 10
Gameplay: 8.0 / 10
Visuals: 9.0 / 10
Sound: 8.5 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of MotoGP 25 (Xbox Series X)

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