The Ride series has traditionally been pitched as a Gran Turismo-style motorcycle experience, featuring exquisitely modelled bikes, a grindy career mode and slick graphics.
However, over five instalments, some fans have been frustrated by a lack of inventiveness from developer Milestone, seeing only incremental improvements (or not, depending on your point of view) and scant new features.
For Ride 6, the Italian studio is aiming higher than a Jorge Lorenzo high-side, introducing distinct ‘Arcade’ and ‘Pro’ handling models, and, for the first time, off-road events.
All of this has been shoehorned into the ‘Ride Fest’ career mode, a festival of motorcycling not dissimilar to Forza Horizon’s premise. It’s an interesting concept; Ride 6 aping two of the biggest four-wheeled franchises on the planet, but is it enough to elevate the sixth entry in the series to the same lofty heights?
Excite bike
Ride 6’s career mode immediately puts you in the saddle, letting you decide whether to stick with the default ‘Arcade’ handling or choose the more simulation-focused ‘Pro’ experience.
Both feel similar initially, but it’s soon clear that Arcade will suit most players looking for a casual and fun riding experience. It’s nearly impossible to crash; you can hold the brakes deep into a corner without fear of destroying your race, even when your bike is at an absurd, MotoGP-style, lean angle.
Pro handling is for the connoisseurs, those who enjoy the intricacies of controlling a motorcycle, from manual weight shifting to precise brake control. Being an experienced player of the likes of Tourist Trophy, TT Superbikes Real Road Racing and TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3, I opted for a more balanced approach, choosing Pro handling but selecting combined brakes and semi-auto shifting assists.
I felt this gave me enough mental bandwidth to learn the vagaries of the game’s physics while also allowing me to short-shift to improve traction.
Handling feels weighty to the point of sluggishness at times in Pro mode, but when you begin to hook up the correct racing lines and tip-in points, Ride 6 is an immensely satisfying motorcycle sim to play. Initially, however, with all assists turned off, you’ll be riding more like Francis Rossi than Valentino.
Electronic
Your bikes also have onboard electronics, including anti-wheelie, traction control, anti-lock brakes, engine braking controls and adjustable fuel mapping, which can be altered on the fly using the D-pad (it would be nice to adjust them while sitting on the grid, not just when racing starts).
The game has the largest selection of motorcycles in series history, with over 340 promised (including DLC content). These range from sports bikes to mopeds, with enduro, motard and bagger bikes introduced for the first time.
Typically, they look tremendous, with lovingly crafted models presented in all their shiny details via the game’s used and new bike dealerships. You can customise them further with performance-enhancing parts, too, speeding up your progress on-track.
Legends
Ride 6 adds 10 motorcycling ‘legends’: successful riders with their own curated set of races within the ‘Ride Fest’ career mode. The likes of Casey Stoner, Thomas Chareyre (Cha-Raire) and Ian Hutchinson have all had massively successful motorcycling careers in their respective sub-genres, which makes the inclusion of Niccolò Canepa, who failed to win a single MotoGP, WorldSBK, or Moto2 race in his career, all the more odd.
Each series of legend events results in a head-to-head race, and winning races allows you to claim their gear and motorcycle. It’s a neat idea we’ve seen in two-wheel games before (the aforementioned TT Superbikes series did it 20 years ago, for example), and it adds some variety to the largely grinding monotony of career mode.
Snooze Fest
Speaking of which, career mode centres around Ride Fest, a huge motorcycling festival incorporating diverse events. Each series, from off-road enduro races to standard circuit racing, feels disparate, with nothing to bind them together: there’s no narrative, and no open-world elements.
In all honesty, if Ride Fest were wiped from the game, the on-track action would be entirely unaffected, such is its ephemeral foundations. It’s a feature that feels tacked-on, so don’t expect any Forza Horizon-style cohesion.
On-track
It’s a minor criticism, though, as the main focus of any racing game is how its vehicles handle. Pleasingly, for the vast majority of my playthrough, I enjoyed Ride 6’s weighty and predictable physics.
The game is at its best when riding on traditional racing circuits; their wide-open contours generally offer great lines of sight, so it’s much easier to coerce your trusty steed from apex to apex.
The track selection is excellent and includes the Nürburgring Nordschleife (which is increasingly becoming off-limits to motorcyclists), Road America, and the Autódromo Internacional Algarve, with road-racing meccas like the North West 200, Ulster GP, and Southern 100 circuits returning from Ride 5. Sadly, there’s no Isle of Man TT Course, which would surely be a popular inclusion further down the line (keep your fingers crossed, TT fans).
Some of the fictional tracks, like Kanto Temples, are a proper chore to ride, however, and I’d happily swap them out for real-world venues. In fact, career mode feels a bit stingy with its distribution of famous tracks, with many only appearing in the later stages of the game.
Off-road
The off-road courses are a mixed bag, too, with the Blue Wave Arena and Enduro tracks featuring flat terrain. There’s also the Turkish Kapadokya Rally biome, which provides a series of sandy enduro courses, and the Alps-based Parco Enduro delle Alpi environment, both featuring natural charm (and err… ‘mushroom-shaped’ rock formations).
My biggest gripe with the off-road tracks is their lack of difficulty; it almost feels silly to be racing rally raid bikes on such flat terrain, so their inclusion feels like a missed opportunity. Receiving track-cut penalties also feels odd given the freeform nature of the discipline.
Physics-wise, the dirt bikes don’t feel as different to ride as they should, either. The rear wheels scramble for grip when you give them full throttle, but the fastest way to proceed is to be neat and tidy.
AI
Your AI opponents can be tailored to your skill level, but during my time with the game, I mostly stuck with adjustable AI. It essentially bases its speed on your ability, and this worked reasonably well for the majority of my playtime, as I was still able to compete for hard-fought wins deep into career mode.
I found that they were always ready to pounce if I ran wide into corners, divebombing realistically. However, I could anticipate this and set them up for a switchback on corner exit, which felt very ‘human’. They clash organically with each other, too, sometimes ragdolling into gravel traps with frightening realism.
This aggressiveness is especially apparent on lap one, when the pack is bunched up. It was a frequent frustration to be rear-ended into a clumsy low-side crash by an AI rider who completely ignores your existence. Likewise, they aren’t particularly clever if you turn across them, preferring to maintain their trajectory rather than be stood up mid-corner.
Shorts generator
Ride 6’s visuals, which harness the power of Unreal Engine 5, deliver gorgeous motorcycle models, realistically rendered tracks (45 of them, including DLC), and convincing dynamic weather and time-of-day mechanics.
This shouldn’t be a surprise, given Milestone has plenty of experience with UE thanks to its MotoGP and Monster Energy Supercross games, and it slightly puts Codemasters’ efforts with EA SPORTS WRC to shame.
Gameplay is silky-smooth (I ran the PlayStation 5 version of the game in 4K at 120Hz with no issues before switching to 60Hz for capturing), and overall detail is impressive, although TV-style replays still feature huge black bars at the top and bottom and overwrought depth-of-field effects. I also noticed disappearing bike shadows and some instances of UE’s notorious shader caching, but not enough to affect gameplay.
Ride 6’s predecessor was a full-on YouTube Shorts generator thanks to its convincing array of weather effects and gyroscopic helmet camera, and I have no doubt Milestone’s latest will be at the top of any motorcycle fan’s feed in the foreseeable future. It really is a visual treat. Well, apart from its gormless lineup of fictional riders…
Equally immersive is the game’s audio, with wailing exhaust notes captured beautifully by the Italian developer, impressive considering the sheer variety of motorcycles on offer. A booming Ducati V-Twin sounds distinct from a high-revving inline four, for example, with subtler differences between similarly specced motors.
My only gripe is that engine revs don’t rise when the bike leans over, a small but important detail in my opinion, and the less said about the game’s banal background music, the better.
Licence to thrill
Players can customise their motorcycles using a variety of officially licensed OEM parts, with official helmets, leathers and boots coming from the likes of Alpine Stars, Arai and Shoei. However, it takes three button presses to confirm the fitting of new parts, which is irritating.
It’s also possible to create and share your custom motorcycle liveries and gear designs online, with full multiplayer crossplay enabled between PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC versions. Monthly challenges and DLC should help keep player interest up post-release, too.
Local two-player split-screen will also be available on console, but was sadly not present in my review build.
Players can also customise and set up their own offline races with dynamic weather and a speedier day-to-night cycle, which is handy if you can’t face the career mode grind.
Riding school
The Bridgestone Riding School gives newbies and lapsed players a chance to sharpen their skills before hitting the track.
The tutorials are generally helpful, but they are unskippable, which makes them time-consuming. They centre around various license tests – very Gran Turismo – and you are judged on how quickly you can complete them, with bonuses on offer for attaining gold medals.
Unfortunately, you can’t just jump into the tests straight away and have to complete a practice run before you’re allowed to set a benchmark, which is a tad frustrating. There aren’t many to complete, however, so most players should be able to zip through them all within an hour or two.
Accessibility options are impressive, with Milestone catering to a one-handed control scheme and a ‘game speed’ setting that can slow the action down. After all, one slight mistake on a motorcycle can have huge knock-on effects, which also makes the rewind function crucial.
The ideal line assist is over-optimistic, however, so I turned it off fairly soon into my playthrough.
Final stretch
Ride 6 is undoubtedly a well-polished motorcycling experience, delivering believable handling dynamics and a challenging career mode. However, the introduction of dirt bikes and the Ride Fest career mode is largely disappointing, and the three off-road environments are arguably overused.
The core experience of riding motorcycles remains solid, and offering separate Arcade and Pro handling modes can only help attract new players while retaining support from returning hardcore fans.
Despite beautiful visuals, a delicious track and bike list and satisfying physics, Ride 6 can be a bit of a grind at times, with much of the more interesting content, like endurance races, plopped onto the tail end of the career mode.
It stops short of being a ‘must-buy’ racing game in the same bracket as a Forza Horizon or Gran Turismo, but Milestone’s ode to motorcycling is probably the best two-wheeled package in video gaming right now.
If you’re a bike nut, however, it’s time to dust off your leathers and get ready to unleash your inner Francis Rossi…
Score: 7/10
“Solid physics but lacks innovation”