{"id":1763959,"date":"2026-02-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1763959"},"modified":"2026-02-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T21:00:00","slug":"ride-6-review-a-two-wheeled-motorsport-festival-with-boss-fights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1763959","title":{"rendered":"RIDE 6 review: a two-wheeled motorsport festival\u2026 with boss fights"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The biggest change to this sixth game in Milestone\u2019s \u2018Gran Turismo minus two wheels\u2019\u00a0RIDE<\/em> series is that rather than completing events simply for cash or kudos, you\u2019re now riding at an international festival of motorcycle racing. Pack up your sleeping bag and get ready to spend the weekend eating \u00a317 loaded fries out of a styrofoam box, because\u00a0RIDE<\/em>\u2019s gone all\u00a0Forza Horizon<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The festival conceit is an important part of how the game lands as a whole, but first we need to talk about riding motorbikes. Milanese studio Milestone is a specialist \u2013 nay, the<\/em> specialist \u2013 in this field, producing the\u00a0MotoGP, Superbike World Championship, MXGP<\/em> and\u00a0Supercross<\/em> series in addition to\u00a0RIDE<\/em>, and that means it\u2019s got a lot of different handling models knocking about in the office. These guys know how to make a sports bike feel like a 220mph cardiac arrest, how to make a bagger feel like a canal barge on wheels, and everything in between. Including off-road bikes, a new addition to this game.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The bikes are slightly more forgiving here than in the aforementioned racing franchises, letting you trail-brake deeper into corners and go heavier on the throttle on corner exits. There are a handful of options to make it more accessible, too, like the arcade physics option and the usual array of assists. Ultimately though, you want to feel the bikes in their purest form. With the assists off, riding them is still a strikingly technical experience that forces you to respect the nuances of each category and learn smooth, controlled braking inputs as you manipulate the front and rear brakes independently.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that long, gravel-flecked road to mastery that proves the most appealing bit of\u00a0RIDE 6<\/em>, just as it was in the previous games, and it means that the 340-strong bike list isn\u2019t just there to fill up space on the store page. Just like you do in\u00a0Forza Horizon<\/em>, it\u2019s great fun to simply spend time with different bikes and figure out their strengths. Which models suit your riding style best. Which are best at certain tracks. You can lose many evenings that way. We did.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Two new elements to\u00a0RIDE 6<\/em>\u2019s career take the enjoyment of that bike mastery project up a notch. The first is the Bridgestone Riding School, which might look like a very skippable, standard issue tutorial at first. Dig into it and you\u2019ll discover it\u2019s actually a lot more involved, showing you techniques specific to each bike type and then having you apply the principles you learned on a short stretch of track. If you can push down the PTSD from grinding out\u00a0Gran Turismo<\/em>\u2019s licenses, this proves to be a surprisingly compelling mode.<\/p>\n

The second \u2013 and indeed the best bit of\u00a0RIDE 6<\/em> as a whole \u2013 is the \u2018Legends\u2019 list. Ten real-world riders representing different racing disciplines who act as chapter bosses, peering down at you imperiously as you start the game from their position of safety. You need to complete a long sequence of events in each category to unlock the chance to race them head-to-head, and if you beat them, you win their gear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s not just that we like the variety and hipster-cred of Milestone\u2019s Legend picks. Alright, that has a lot to do with it \u2013 Troy Bayliss! James Toseland! Casey Stoner! Guy Martin! \u2013 but it\u2019s also the structural excitement this lends to the game. Solo-focused racing games need a great big, neon-lit \u2018why\u2019 to keep you racing and progressing, and the simple proposition of proving yourself against the best of the best and then riding off with their helmet provides just that.<\/p>\n

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\"RIDE<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Time to be candid about the festival stuff now. RIDE Fest gives all those solo events a thematic coherence and some cool set dressing, all of which do their job. But bringing in the concept of a festival to a racing game in 2026 inevitably invites comparisons to\u00a0Forza Horizon<\/em>, the series which pioneered it and has lavished levels of polish and production on it that very few other studios could realistically match. There aren\u2019t scores of DJs commentating on what you\u2019re doing or epic tents complete with massive crowds and laser shows in the background of your races. There aren\u2019t bombastic, Michael Bay-approved Showcase events to close out each chapter. There are banners, a DJ spinning some tunes, and\u2026 not much else. This is the kind of festival you could actually get some sleep at in the campsite.<\/p>\n

Milestone has to work harder and smarter than its peers in order to deliver an ambitious concept like this, and commendable as the end result is, you do also notice some compromises along the way. This game shares much of its cosmetics like helmets and \u2018butt patch\u2019 designs with the\u00a0MotoGP\u00a0<\/em>series, for example, and the introduction of arcade handling feels very reminiscent of that series\u2019 most recent release too.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t hold\u00a0RIDE 6<\/em> back from being a success. Regardless of the festival trimmings, this is still a game about mastering a vast array of highly detailed and physically demanding bikes, and that\u2019s more enjoyable than ever thanks to a bit of added structure that helps guide and define your mastery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The biggest change to this sixth game in Milestone\u2019s \u2018Gran Turismo minus two wheels\u2019\u00a0RIDE series is that rather than completing events simply for cash or kudos, you\u2019re now riding at an international festival of motorcycle racing. Pack up your sleeping bag and get ready to spend the weekend eating \u00a317 loaded fries out of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-1763959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1763959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1763959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1763959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1763959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1763959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1763959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}