MXGP 26 Review: Great Racing, Sneaky Difficulty | The Gamerheads Podcast

Platform reviewed: PC (Steam)

Also on: Playstation 5, Xbox Series X|S

Price: $59.99 USD

Motorcycle racing games have always been something that I found to be fun and exciting, ever since I started playing Tourist Trophy game on the PS2. I saw an opportunity to try MXGP 26 and with the game’s hyperrealistic design paired with the physics of dirt bike racing, I knew this would be a super fun and exciting game that could get competitive very quickly.

MXGP combines the physics of motorcycle racing with a sidenote of dirt biking. This makes the game enjoyable, yet challenging when you sit down and start playing it. I started out by racing in a practice championship style race. It was a little confusing to start, as the race position made it seem like I was constantly in last place, when during the actual race I was usually near the front. The starting controls were hard to use so I had to tune it a lot. I adjusted the steering sensitivity and steering stabilization to be able to steer the motorcycle easier while not having to account for the rough terrain. However, once I did that it was a lot easier to control and use and made the game a lot more enjoyable.

The majority of the time I spent in the game was spent in racetracks, trying to familiarize myself with the maps and how to best control my motorcycle. I’ve been playing racing games for a while, but I’m still very much a beginner. The overall feel of the game out of the box was substantially harder, even when I set the difficulty to be amateur (which was the easiest difficulty available). I would have liked the overall difficulty level alongside with the steering assistance to scale proportionally and allow the users to change those settings as they’d see fit, but that was not an option that was provided in the game unfortunately.

Final Grade: B-

Regardless, the overall controls in the game are very easy to pick up if you’ve played any other racing game or similar game in this market. I found that once I was in a flow, it was considerably harder to set the game down because I would be hooked in and consistently trying to beat my own times. MXGP 26 released on October 1, 2026 and is $59.99 on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox markets.