Milestone’s Ride series has always been a bit of a passion project and a love letter to motorcycle racing. Compared to heavy-hitter racing sims like Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo, or even iRacing, it has always been a bit more niche. It’s for the bike nerds that want to dive into hundreds of real-world two heelers, chasing lap records and tweaking their ride as they go.
For a lot of people, Ride 5 was a bit of a step backward. The four-act structured and linear campaign did not appeal to many people, and the physics also took a step backwards compared to Ride 4. With a complete progression overhaul, dual physics system, and plenty of new content, Ride 6 is fundamentally the right step forward.
It swaps out some of the linear grind for a Need for Street: Pro Street vibe: the Ride Fest festival catalog, where you pick categories (sportsbikes, enduro, scooters, motards, etc), rack up Fame points, and challenge real-world legends like Casey Stoner. Fundamentally, it’s good, but it does have its problems.
Ride Fest Is A Welcome Change
This is by far the killer hook for Ride 6. It ditches the rigid structure of the previous game for Ride Fest. This is a freeform festival with various race categories that you can attack at your own pace. Throughout Ride Fest, you’ll go through all bike categories, explore all the tracks, and start a collection from the 340+ two-wheelers on offer.
There are seven categories here: Sportsbikes that serve as track beasts, Motards for agile dirt/street racing and offroading, Naked like the KTM 890 Duke R for raw street fun, and Enduro, Scooters, and Baggers like the Indian Challenger RR. Speaking of which, your first race will be with the Indian Challenger RR at the XYZ circuit.
The Ride Fest catalog is laid out as chapters, but you don’t have to proceed linearly. You start with the XYZ category, but then you can move on to Motards (like I did), or see what those 300CC scooters are all about. Winning unlocks Fame Points, in-game rewards like helmets, and credits. Fame Points unlock more races and categories, while credits allow you to upgrade bikes, buy new ones, or buy cosmetics for both your rider and bike.
By no means is this progression system something new or groundbreaking. As I said earlier, it reminds me of Pro Street a lot, and you can just as easily compare it to the earlier Forza Horizon games that had more of a focus on the festival. So, while it’s nothing new, it does work, and most people will feel right at home. This is the same reason why Forza Horizon 6 is returning to its roots a bit.
I had a good bit of fun progression through the early XYZ and ABC races, before finally finding Motards to be the most enjoyable. They’re fast, turn sharply, and reward precision and fluid movement, exactly the type of racing I like. Off-road races, a first for the series, were also quite a bit of fun.
However, I do feel that in some of these off-road tracks, the actual environment isn’t that challenging or varied. Some of the tracks feel just as smooth as regular race tracks, but with a different appearance. Mountains and dirt are cool, but they need to feel like more of a challenge than they do at times. Switching to the “Pro” experience makes it a bit better, more on that later.
Throughout Ride Fest, you’ll also encounter champions — real-world racing icons like King of the Baggers winner Tyler O’Hara and 16-time Isle of Man winner Ian Hutchinson. As you unlock more races, you’ll eventually take on these champions head-to-head for their trophy. These “championship” races typically involve more than one race, and there’s a qualifying session before each one. I would have liked to seen a bit more spectacle and buildup around these champions that you face.
The Dual Physics System Works
Another new inclusion for the game is the dual physics system. Before each race event, you can press X (Xbox) or Square (PlayStation) on your controller to access the “Experience” menu. This menu allows you to dial in the level of AI assist in braking, throttle management, and steering. Changing this will also change the reward multiplier for each race. For example, turning of the majority of assists will give you a higher number of rewards per race.
But the main kicker here is that you can switch between the “Arcade” and “Pro” experience. Arcade is supposed to be better for casuals who just want to go through a few quick races, while Pro will be the full sim experience. If you select the Pro experience, you’ll get more fame points and credits from each race win/finish.
The new Ride Fest progression system is good for returning fans who want a deeper experience, but this dual physics system shows that Milestone also wants to welcome newcomers. For that purpose, it works surprisingly well. I “simulated” a race in Daytona by turning AI braking, steering, and throttle to the max. With this setup, all you have to do is hold down R2 and provide the slightest steering input. It wasn’t any fun for me, but it was a good experiment to see just how well the AI does for training newcomers. The results were impressive, and it’s a good way to learn if you’re just getting used to the track or that new bike you unlocked. Even switching off all the assists but staying in Arcade mode grants more forgiving braking and cornering, so it’s still fun.
With the Pro experience, there’s more of a focus on precise control over throttle, braking, and weight distribution. Off-road terrain feels a bit more challenging, but not to the degree that I would say it’s a massive change. Tyre dynamics and bike-specific characteristics also matter more. You still have the customizable assists, so there is quite a lot of depth to fine-tune your own experience.
Customization in the game is great, as you can change the livery, decals, mirrors, and more for most of the bikes. There’s also a performance tuning section, and you see the results of your tuning more clearly with the Pro experience. The dealership’s customization – powertrain, exhaust, brakes, suspension, rims, tires – delivers tangible lap gains, though it could guide newbies better on what bikes/setups suit which races.
Personally, I plowed through the early sections of Ride Fest with Arcade, just to unlock more race categories and bikes. I then switched to Pro for some real immersion. It’s a seamless switch (you can do it before each race), and I think it will be appreciated by the playerbase.
Graphics, Ride Feel, And Physics
Ride 6 makes a lot of meaningful improvements with the dual physics system and the new Ride Fest career, and it also addresses some of Ride 5’s frustrations — turns are tighter, braking is more responsive, and the bikes do feel a bit better. But for the more dedicated players, it’s not exactly the biggest overhaul.
Bikes over 600cc+, like the Triumph Daytona 675R, still feel floaty on straights. For those who were hoping for leaning and cornering to feel more responsive, you’ll notice a difference. With a lot of the bikes, if you make changes to suspension, it tigthens up some of that floaty feeling. However, the game still asks for constant micro-adjustments, and sometimes your inputs fight against you. Again, Motards had the most responsive handling for me in this game, even with off-road tracks like Kapadokya Rally (Turkey).
The weather in most races adds subtle grip tweaks, like rain making leaning trickier. However, in the 25+ hours I put into this game, there weren’t many dramatic slides or a need for a strategy shift. Again, the Pro experience does enhance nuances like tyre dynamics and bike-specific trips.
As for the graphics, the game does look cleaner than Ride 5. The latest installment leans on Unreal Engine 5’s lighting to impress. Evening, night, and off-road races have a lot of atmospheric depth, and many of my sessions had moody highlights. Daytona looks familiar from Ride 5, but the lighting and weather moods give it a fresh spin.
I just don’t think it’s the “next-gen graphical overhaul” that most people were expecting. It looks fine in most cases, but there was never really a moment I felt like I was viewing something drastically different from the previous entry. Again, the lighting helps, but that’s more of an artstyle improvement than a pure fidelity one.
The sound design is… serviceable. Crashes and bails don’t have that “oomph” that I’d like to see, and a lot of the bikes sound similar. You’ll notice a bigger difference when switching entire bike categories, though.
What Else Is New?
Ride 6 features over 340 motorcycles from 21 manufacturers (including DLC) and a total of 45 tracks. It’s important to note here that trims, such as the Ninja ZX-10R Endurance Modified and the standard ZX-10R, count as two separate bikes, even though the only difference is in the setup. That’s fine by me, as there are plenty of bikes that are still highly different. Let’s not forget that Maxi Enduro and Baggers are completely new categories, so we get quite a few never-before-seen rides.
The new tracks are great, and the fact that you can seamlessly jump between any track/bike category through the Ride Fest is a great addition. I particularly enjoyed the Blue Wave track variants, Circuito de Almeria, and the Japanese Kanto Temple and Okayama. There’s enough variety here to keep things interesting.
The game also offers quick modes, where you can pick from single, time attack, and endurance races, and use your own bikes. If you don’t want to buy new bikes, you can also loan them from the dealership. However, loaned bikes will result in fewer rewards.
The paddock hub serves as the central base, and everything goes together nicely. On the main page, you can hop into Ride Fest, Quick Modes, or Multiplayer. The page on the right features the dealership and the new Riding School. On the left page, you’ll find the garage (you tweak and customize bikes here), the outlet (change rider gear customizations), and the Ride Editor for creating custom events with ease.
Multiplayer has always been a bit of a lighter touch for the series, and it’s no different this time around. I was unable to find populated lobbies with review code, so we’ll probably take another look at this aspect of the game once more people get their hands on it. However, the multiplayer mode does offer you to pick from a wide variety of races and tracks, each with its own track and bike limitations for a different challenge each time around.
Should You Buy Ride 6?
For newcomers to the series or fans of motorcycles looking to scratch an itch, there is a lot to sink your teeth into here. Ride 6 is fun to play, the track selection is great, and the fact that you can collect over 340 bikes is awesome. The Ride Fest is a genuine major improvement in terms of progression, and the dual-physics system and accessibility features (like the colorblind mode) make this game very welcoming.
However, at times, you are reminded of its limitations. Some bikes feel floaty, the physics still don’t match up with Ride 4 (the best in the series), and the graphical improvements are there, but insubstantial. Rather than feeling like a completely new game that’s exciting for seasoned players, this one feels more like what Ride 5 should have been from the start.
At hour 25, I wasn’t even halfway through the career, and I skipped a couple of races I wasn’t interested in (time attack ones mostly). With all the bikes and races available, Ride Fest alone can eat up almost 100 hours of your time if you want to collect and explore everything. Then there’s also the multiplayer aspect.
So, again, for newcomers, there’s a lot of value here. However, for those who are still playing through Ride 5 and enjoy it, I’d hold off until it’s on sale. Apart from Ride Fest and some new content, you likely won’t notice major differences.
