“Eat dirt. Taste victory.” That’s an apt tagline for Trials: Rising, the zany dirt-bike racing game being developed by RedLynx and Ubisoft Kiev. If you fail and land in the dirt, you get up and try it again until you win.
Trials: Rising comes out on the consoles and PC in February, but we got a good look at it at publisher Ubisoft’s pre-Gamescom press event. It’s a casual racing game, because anybody can pick up and play it, but it takes some hardcore skill to be good at it. I played it enough to see how challenging it was and how hilarious it was in throwing over-the-top challenges at the player. I embedded my gameplay, terrible as it is, to give you an idea of what it’s like to play the game.
Rising is the first main series game in the Trials franchise since Trials: Fusion in 2014. In this one, you control a physics-based motorcycle, making sure you use the game controller to apply the exact amount of throttle and weight at any given moment as you maneuver your way through obstacle courses, like jumping over crumbling bridges or vaulting over lava.
Above: Don’t let the pretty background distract you in Trials: Rising.
“We call it a physics-based motorcycle … puzzle game? [Laughs] The obstacles and the way you get through the tracks, especially when you get to the harder content, can be very puzzle-like,” said John Lloyd, community developer at Ubisoft for the game, in an interview with GamesBeat. “What we aimed for in Rising was to make the biggest, most ambitious Trials to date. I definitely think that’s what we’re doing.”
When you crash — and crash you will — you can instantly reset the bike to an earlier spot and try it again. You could do this a few times in less than a minute, and that makes Rising an intense trial of skill. It’s got a crazy sense of humor, with funny things happening in the background like an oncoming train that can knock you off your bike if you aren’t paying attention.
“Balancing the bike is super-important. Especially as you get to the harder bikes,” Lloyd said. “They’re very agile, so they can do a lot on the more technical obstacles, but they’re also a lot harder to control. You need to have that precision in your control.”
Above: John Lloyd is community developer for Ubisoft’s Trials: Rising.
Rising has new features like a tandem bike, but I didn’t get to try the two-seater. The fantasy aspect is being emphasized as you go through a worldwide trials championship, Lloyd said. You travel around the world to different events, get contracts from sponsors, and earn fame, which gets you into more prestigious competitions. With the contracts, you might be required to do three complete 360-degree rotations to meet the requirements.
“We say it’s easy to pick up and hard to master,” Lloyd said. “The hardest content we have in the game is the extreme tracks. They get very difficult. Our top players have used the in-game editor to take it far beyond that, to this community-created difficulty, which is ninja difficulty. Very few people can do that stuff, but it’s insane what they can do. It’s almost superhuman.”
I could see how you could get obsessed with this game, trying to improve your muscle-memory until you got your timing just right, and memorizing the tracks so that you could always be ready for the surprises that the game throws your way.
