Yamaha off-road competition bikes are designed to turn enthusiasts into the best riders possible – to help them become one with their machine and win races – and to put them in the Victory Zone, atop the podium. From exciting youth models like the YZ65 and YZ85, to the legendary YZ125 or YZ250 two-strokes, and the championship-winning YZ250F and class-leading YZ450F with the industry-exclusive Power Tuner app, all Yamaha motocross bikes have one thing in common: winners choose them. Learn more at YamahaMotorsports.com

After four years in the making, MX vs ATV Legends has finally hit the shelves today. Available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, this latest game in the MX vs ATV series is the first in the series to be fully built for ninth generation consoles. The game makes use of Unreal Engine 5 to bring together one of the most detailed and immersive motocross gameplay experiences ever.

The real story that everyone will ultimately be asking though is what has changed. As any gamer goes out today to purchase this new game, we wanted to provide a more in-depth synopsis of what you can expect to pick up.

For starters, the base game comes with three different “brands” of dirt bikes, ATVs, and UTVs. As the OEM packs are day one DLC, or downloadable content, you’ll need to pay right away to ride some of your favorite brands. That being said, the machines that come with the game provide the same level of speed and performance as the OEMs so it’s strictly down to aesthetics there.

When it comes to the physics model for the new game, Rainbow Studios elected to take a different approach then prior games to how you control the bike. There still is the classic dual-stick use in the game where you utilize both the left and right joysticks on your controller to work in harmony for optimal performance on the racetrack. However, you’ll certainly find yourself using both joysticks more in this game to control the rider movements as well as the bike movements. In prior games, the sticks were more separate where one would control the bike and one would control the rider. This time, you can use both sticks for seat-bouncing, scrubbing, attacking whoops, cornering, and uniquely pushing and pulling up on jumps. It’s a hard balance to learn if you’re used to what the previous titles felt like, but it creates a rewarding feeling once you connect the basics and start putting lines together.

Whipping and scrubbing in these games is always a hot button topic. When it comes to scrubbing, this is a step up as you now have the ability to cork out a monumental Bubba-scrub level scrub on every jump. But if you don’t need to stay that low, turning the joysticks away from each other or towards each other will simply do a slight scrub instead. The whipping is a completely different story from past games though. Unlike MX vs ATV All Out or MX vs ATV Reflex where whips would fly out huge every time you breathed on the joysticks; the heavier feel of MX vs ATV Legends means you have to plan out whips much more. The movements of both joysticks to lay the bike sideways while hanging off the bike and then the technique to slowly pull the bike back straight are much more precise in the new game and will likely take new players some time to learn it. Similar to connecting lines though, once you do learn how to do it, the reward of a crisp whip off a big jump in the game is very satisfying.

MX vs ATV Legends has introduced a whole new back story for Career Mode as well. The game is centered around your racing career of course, but the whole time you are being coached by a former racer who is trying to save his farm from being repossessed by the bank. While you gain fans and money, you are also working to help the man save his farm and build a new moto training ground in the process. It’s a very long and in-depth career with lots of racing on not only motorcycles, but the ATVs and UTVs as well.

Likely the biggest improvement for MX vs ATV Legends is the vast open world areas to use. Along with several supercross and motocross tracks, the game comes stock with four open world areas of forests, deserts, beaches, and the aforementioned moto farm that will take any player hours to see it all. Each freeride map has a large network of trails that are used for hare scramble racing throughout the Career Mode as well. Coupled with some national tracks and unbelievable terrain, the limits of exploration are hard to find in MX vs ATV Legends.

A bit of a letdown for some though will come in the fact that the AMA Pro Motocross tracks are once again DLC for this new game. That means you will need to pay for the Pro Motocross season pass to receive the new tracks, but once you do get them, they are a ton of fun. Those tracks will be available from July 5th onward as the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship makes its rounds around the country.

The beauty of the open world maps is that you can also enjoy them with your friends in expanded multiplayer lobbies. Just like prior editions of MX vs ATV games, you and several of your gaming buddies can hop on to race each other on any of the tracks or settle into the freeride areas and explore it all as a group. The latter aspect certainly presents the feel of just riding with your buddies like you might in the real world and enjoying the ride along the way.

Customization is always a big talking point with motocross games as well and admittedly this game has fallen short at launch. With a limited selection of official gear from brands like Alpinestars, FXR, Fox, Seven, and Troy Lee Designs, you’ll quickly be able to purchase every piece of gear in the game. There also isn’t too much in the way of bike customization as you are limited, at least for now, to wheels, rims, handlebars, sprockets, seats, and pipes for component changes. It also appears that just Pro Taper, Renthal, Brembo, FMF, Pro Circuit, and Dunlop components are available at the moment. Perhaps this is something they will expand upon further though.

All in all, it’s great to have a new game to play for motocross fans out there. We’re far removed from the dark days of 2011-2014 where there was nearly nothing available nor nothing in development. This is the third different MX vs ATV title we’ve now had since Nordic Games bought THQ’s trademark in 2014. There will be some players disappointed with the new game but there’s also plenty of positives to take away now that the game is here and also lots of fun to be had. All that’s left for you is to pick up a copy of it yourself and see what it’s all about.

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