With the racing season on hold and rounds continuing to be postponed or cancelled, MotoGP 20 has landed at the perfect time for motorbike fans, and the new game looks to fill the void in a variety of ways.

A revamped career mode, upgraded physics engine and simulation systems as well as improved AI is what Milestone has worked on for its newest entry to the MotoGP series, and it all makes for the best the developer has come up with since taking over the series licence.

The on-track overhaul in this year’s game aims to deliver a more true-to-life challenge, with a new asymmetric tyre wear model, fuel consumption and brake management systems making for as realistic an experience as possible.

Front and rear brakes can now be operated separately and the Neural AI that Milestone says continues to learn to improve its own pace, has been sharpened up and will punish every missed braking zone and wide line through corners.

Newer players will want to play with the physics and braking assists in the menus as the game doesn’t even take a tenth of a second to think about easing you in. With the learning curve modelling itself on a brick wall, players may struggle to acclimatise at first but stick with it for a while and you’ll eventually scale the brick and mortar to click with the game.

Of course, adjustable assist and AI difficulty means you can race for victory whatever skill level you are at. The alternative is to take off the training wheels and ask the AI to go a little tougher on you. Soon winning the on-track battles for 10th will feel like a win in itself.

Historic bikes and riders make a return, with in-game credits awarded scaling with three tiers of challenges available to the player. In total, 46 historic riders are available to unlock alongside 43 bikes, though multiple riders will appear more than once in different years of their career as part of that total.

MotoGP 20’s career mode though is where the most work has gone into this year, and once more you can start in any of the MotoGP classes, but you might want to work your way up and master the handling first before hopping on Honda’s premier class beast.

Players hire two engineers who will be responsible for improving the bike as well as a personal agent, who will negotiate contracts as well as facilitate moves to other teams.

Bike development is split into four areas with the hireable AI specialising in certain areas over others. The same goes for your agent, whether they are best at getting a higher salary for you or apt at contract negotiations.

The higher your salary, the better engineers you can hire, the faster you can upgrade your equipment. It all links together nicely and gives value to a system that was lacking in last year’s version.