Ride 5 is the latest chapter in the thrilling motorcycle racing series from Milestone, and the latest entry is an ambitious and uber-authentic new iteration vying to get one step closer to riding the real thing. The prolific Italian studio has covered everything involving bikes in its long-running career, from superbikes to MotoGP, Motocross, and even Supercross, showcasing a pedigree that many companies can only dream of. But with every new release like Ride, there’s always the need to bring something new, something exciting that warrants the purchase for veterans and new fans alike. With Ride 4 dating from 2020, there was enough time to build upon the new game, but are the additions worthwhile?

Not the Pick Up and Ride Type

Ride 5 continues the tradition of realism and attention to every detail that helps reproducing the feeling of mounting a bike capable of reaching dizzying speeds in a few seconds. The comparison to Gran Turismo but on two wheels is a frequent one and not too farfetched, given the obsession with every aspect that makes a bike tick. It’s a task requiring a combination of several factors contributing to performances that end up being very different, with the small tweaks by expert players being enough to get that extra oomph out of the bike.

All this to say that Ride 5 is a pure, unadulterated simulation aimed at specialists, not forsaking the legacy of the series to appease new fans. It’s ruthless, difficult, and as far from arcade racing as it could be. However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t several aids for rookie riders, from the traditional optimal trajectory line to steering and braking help, and even a rewind option allowing you to fix mistakes and recover from those times when you went into the gravel headfirst. Even with some of these aids turned on, judging your distance is imperative and braking too late will result in understeer and a harsh rear tire skid that can be saved, but it’s not the greatest place to be. The more riding aids you activate, the less reward bonuses you earn, so there’s this fine balance to consider if you plan on progressing on the new career mode.

While riders are fictional in Ride 5 and there’s a mix of real and made-up circuits, the bikes are recreated after real-world manufacturers, including all the famous names such as Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Ducati, Aprilia, KTM, and more, in a total of more than 200 motorbikes. The attention to every beat, every piece is painstaking, with the option to tweak nearly everything from suspension, transmission, vehicle geometry, and electronics; the better the bike the more possibilities, but some of these are locked behind riding aids. Affinity levels reward recurrent use of a manufacturer, granting you discounts when acquiring new bikes from the same constructor.

In terms of circuits, it’s not a major breakaway from the previous chapters, with 35 circuits featuring many returning names, something that may be a letdown to those expecting more wild and new locations. One of the new tracks is the fictional Blue Wave Circuit in Hawaii, with long winding tunnels and a bridge that certainly make it stand out from most real-life circuits.

Taking off the figurative training wheels at one point will be essential to aim for the top rankings, with enough confidence and experience to climb the leaderboards in the new career mode. The format isn’t going to break boundaries or astonish you, being a familiar succession of tours and challenges where you must reach certain points of goals to unlock the next one, going head-to-head with some rivals, discovering new categories, and earning new bikes.

Dynamic weather is one of the new features and it’s interesting to see how it gradually shifts from clear skies to rain, drastically changing the approach to the race. You can fiddle around with the various weather conditions and other things in Race Creator, with the longer races allowing you more phases with different weather, and also offering freedom to select the remaining basics, from number of riders to their aggressiveness, AI difficulty, and bike types, but you yourself are limited to the ones unlocked so far.

One of the new additions, or should I say returning feature, is the two-player split-screen mode. Last seen in Ride 2, it’s one of those bullet points that don’t seem essential in an age where online connectivity and even cross-platform play are widespread, but there may be some players who end up enjoying it, despite the diminished sizes of the play area. Ride 5 features cross-platform multiplayer between PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, but on PC you are limited to playing with others on Epic and Steam, something that may come as a disappointment to some.

The Ride of a Lifetime?

Speed and weight in Ride 5 feel just like what you would expect from a simulation, and even with the riding aids, newcomers will still find it a challenge, but perhaps not an entirely fun one. Still, this is one more for the experts, and they will enjoy the scope of possibilities and higher difficulty levels, but that doesn’t mean Ride 5 is without its shortcomings.

Collisions are one area that still needs some work, as some of the hits verge on the side of erratic and random, less impactful than they may seem at first. Furthermore, these are mostly restricted to one rider, usually the player, and eventually another rider you get involved with, ignoring the others that easily bump into the fallen bikes – instead, they just go through the crashed bikes as if they weren’t there, even if they only disappear a second later.

AI is another field that isn’t quite where we hoped it to be, with the first impressions pointing to a rudimentary behavior of the other riders. They follow the optimal trajectory line the best they can, ignoring your presence and bumping into you, doing the same thing in turns and ricocheting their way towards the finish line. Interestingly, ramping up the AI difficulty seemed to make the riders slightly more aware of your position, displaying some attempts at not scraping paint and elbows with you and trying to avoid contact in straights, even if failing miserably most of the time. It surely doesn’t come close to mimicking the expected performance of a human rider, and there’s a lot of room for improvement in this regard.

Ride 5 is an exhilarating ride, forgive the redundancy, once again a terrific motorcycle racing game for experts who are ready to throw away all the riding aids and dive deep into the raw and unforgiving experience. Casuals and arcade enthusiasts will have a difficult time finding the right spot to enjoy it and may not be pleased with the middle ground that it offers. Skilled players, on the other hand, should seriously reflect if it’s worth purchasing the new release given the few major improvements. Those who give in are bound to enjoy the multiplayer thrills and expansive career events, but be wary of the blatant AI limitations, still the weaker link in otherwise exciting bike races.

Score: 8/10

Pros:

• Over 200 bikes perfectly rendered
• Great customization depth and realistic physics
• Expansive career mode
• Attempts to welcome novice players with more riding aids

Cons:

• AI isn’t quite up to the challenge
• Not much in terms of new tracks
• Limited cross-play feature

Ride 5 review code was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.