What MotoGP™21 is
MotoGP™21 is a motorcycle racing game built around the 2021 season. You race in the MotoGP™, Moto2™ and Moto3™ classes, with more than 120 official riders and over 20 tracks on offer. Alongside the current line-up you can run more than 40 historic riders on their iconic bikes, so the grid is not limited to one season. The game leans on simulation and physics rather than arcade handling, and the Long Lap Penalty makes its debut here, giving you an extra route to serve when you pick up a penalty.
Riding and managing a team
Race craft sits at the centre of the game. During a race you have to watch the fuel level, brake temperature and tire wear, and decide when to push and when to back off. Aggression has consequences: when you fall, you need to remount and get going again as quickly as possible, because lost time in a single lap is hard to recover.
Career mode goes further than riding. You join an official team or create a brand new one, then pick your staff — a group of professionals who help you through the season and career with decisions such as which contract to take and how the bike gets developed. Once you reach the highest classes you can set up your own Junior Team and handle every aspect of it yourself.
On the presentation side, five graphic editors let you customise helmet, suit, stickers, racing number and livery, so the bike and rider can look like your own. The A.N.N.A. neural AI system, based on machine learning, returns with improvements, and the developers describe it as bringing new behaviour into the races.
Playing it with friends
MotoGP™21 supports online PvP, so you can challenge your friends rather than only taking on the AI. Race Director mode lets you create your own events for your group, and the game uses Dedicated Servers, which the developers describe as giving a smooth and lag-free experience. Singleplayer is fully supported too, so a solo career and organised online sessions can run side by side.
Before you start
Expect a racing simulation where setup choices and race decisions matter as much as raw pace. You will spend time managing fuel, brakes and tires over the course of a race, and falling carries a real cost, so smooth, repeatable laps usually beat constant risk-taking. If you like building up something over time, the managerial side — staff, contracts, bike development and a Junior Team — is a large part of the package rather than an add-on. Camera-wise, both third person and first person options are supported, so pick the view that suits how you want to read the bike and the track ahead.