If you’ve spent any time with two-wheeled racing games over the last decade, you know the genre can be a fickle beast. Milestone held the keys to the MXGP championship for years, delivering solid entries that often struggled to break free from feeling iterative. When Nacon and Artefacts Studio took over the reins and promised an Unreal Engine 5 ground-up rebuild, the motocross community held its collective breath.

After putting around thirty hours into MXGP 26 – The Official Game on Xbox Series X—eating my fair share of digital roost and picking my virtual rider out of the fencing at Matterley Basin—I’m ready to weigh in. Is this the generational leap off-road fans have been waiting for, or does it stall at the starting gate?