How Monster Jam Showdown Captures the Thrill of Monster Trucks

For the last decade, Milestone has been best known for its officially licensed MotoGP games. More recently, the Italian studio found success with the hugely popular Hot Wheels Unleashed series based on the popular toy line. Now, Milestone is moving from motorbikes and miniature cars to monster trucks with Monster Jam Showdown.

We spoke with game director Federico Spada to learn more about Milestone’s first foray into the world of monster trucks.

“We’ve been working with Feld Motor Sports (Monster Jam’s owner) for a long time, and we’ve always been fascinated by the aura that Monster Jam has,” Spada told RacingGames when asked why Milestone wanted to make a Monster Jam game.

“Such big beasts are fascinating not only in terms of the show they can put on but even from a technical standpoint. Hot Wheels allowed us to dig more into the physics and behavior of four-wheeled vehicles. When the occasion arose, we decided to take it and have the chance to work with this amazing IP.”

World Tour is a new take on Monster Jam

As the sport has risen in popularity, Monster Jam has a long history of official games from many developers. Most recently, the series was helmed by Rainbow Studios, which developed two Monster Jam Steel Titans games. With Showdown, Milestone brings a new take on the Monster Jam series that appeals to a broader player base.

“We decided to expand on a theme that is important to us: make every player feel they can tailor their experience while playing our game,” Spada explains. “We pushed this idea one step further by creating the Showdown Tour. This is the main way the player will experience everything in the game. There will be three event types, and players can decide what kind of events they want to complete.”

These events include Stunt, Short, and Racing. The Stunt category features Freestyle, Best Trick, and Extreme Freestyle events, while the Short category sees you compete in Head to Head and Extreme Head to Head Events. Finally, the Racing category hosts Circuit, Figure 8, and Horde events.

The variety offered in Showdown's ten game modes is surprising. Freestyle is a traditional stunt mode, which sees you performing jumps, wheelies, two-wheel 'bicycles,' and show-stopping backflips in stadiums to score the most points. Extreme Freestyle events have you “compete inside wider arenas in the wild environments,” while Best Trick mode asks players to “perform specific tricks to score more points.”

Showdown doesn’t restrict you to official arenas. Alongside the stadium stunt mode is a classic circuit racing mode set in three off-road environments (Alaska, Colorado, or Death Valley) filled with shortcuts and jumps, with an additional Figure 8 mode featuring crossroads for maximum mayhem.

Showdown’s chaotic off-road racing and destructible environments have been compared to Sony’s MotorStorm games, but Spada says this wasn’t the only inspiration. “We studied a lot of games from the past, starting with the Monster Jam games to other great arcade racing games."

"While being compared to MotorStorm is an honor, saying that it was a deliberate inspiration wouldn’t give justice to many other great titles we played and studied to find all the strengths that could make Monster Jam Showdown a solid arcade racing game.”

Elsewhere, Horde mode divides players into two teams. “One team has to overtake the team, which starts in front of them. When a player is overtaken, they will switch to the other team. The race ends when all players are overtaken or when time has expired and not all the players have been overtaken and switched teams.”

Based on the actual Monster Jam events, Head to Head pits you against a rival truck in short and technical one-lap stadium circuits, while Extreme Head to Head events take place outside the arenas. 

Finally, the online-only Treasure Hunt mode has players compete in two teams to collect and deliver treasures in arenas. "Smashing into opponents will make them drop all the treasure they have collected and not delivered yet!"

Rather than a linear list of events, Showdown’s World Tour allows players to choose their path and focus on their favorite categories. “When a player completes an event in a category, a new event of the same category is unlocked in one of the Alaska, Colorado, or Death Valley environments. On top of that, a player is awarded with tokens that unlock Showdown Events.” These special events see players compete against an iconic Monster Jam truck to unlock it.

“Events will become more difficult as you progress, and the player can freely choose from unlocked events. This lets players craft their experience in the Showdown Tour, whether they want to focus on a single category of events or space everything out as they prefer.”

“On top of that, players will be asked to complete specific Challenges to unlock new Monster Jam tracks and liveries. We felt this will engage players in short, medium, and long terms.”

"We did a lot of research to understand how these majestic beasts behave in real life"

Monster Jam is particularly popular with children, so ensuring that Showdown appeals to players of all ages and skill levels is essential for Milestone. “We spent a lot of effort to make the game accessible to all players, but at the same time adding a layer of driving aids that can be turned off to offer a more challenging gameplay experience.”

Dual-steering allows you to navigate tighter turns by steering the front and rear wheels separately, replicating the real truck setups. Novice players can turn this off. Likewise, applying the drift assist makes it easier to control the top-heavy trucks at speed. Showdown captures what it feels like to drive an enormous 12,000-pound monster truck, but it’s not a hardcore simulation. 

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“To create a good racing arcade game, you need to start from solid foundations. We did a lot of research to understand how these majestic beasts behave in real life and create a physics system that could recreate what happens in real life. However, that’s the only starting point,” Spada explains.

“With that in mind and thanks to a lot of iterations, our physics designers and programmers identified the core parts of the vehicles and added layers of driving aids to make the game more immediate in terms of gameplay, thus creating an arcade driving system.”

To make the handling authentic yet accessible, Milestone consulted with real Monster Jam drivers during development. “We asked them important questions about their feelings when driving the trucks to understand how they impact the vehicles when driving and what kind of split-second decisions they have to make. This information was crucial to us for creating a gameplay experience that’s interesting and exciting at the same time.”

Monster Jam fans can get behind the wheel of over 60 iconic trucks in Showdown, from old favorites like the Monster Mutt Retro to the fan-favorite Grave Digger.

Milestone also wants to recreate the atmosphere and spectacle of a Monster Jam show. “We spent a lot of time researching what makes the Monster Jam world so fascinating and appealing: we tried to recreate the stunning part of the show in every part of the game, from the menus and UI to track design and presentation.”

A new engine under the bonnet

Monster Jam Showdown marks Milestone’s first game developed in Unreal Engine 5. As a result, the visuals are a noticeable step up from the studio’s previous projects, with meticulously detailed monster trucks and environments, more realistic lighting, and spectacular weather conditions.

“Unreal Engine 5 gave us the chance to visually upgrade all parts of the game, from the environments to the vehicles,” says Spada. “On top of that, Unreal Engine 5 allowed us to use Lumen, a new global illumination and reflection system that allowed us to create interesting scenes in terms of lightning, such as all the extreme weather conditions you will experience in the game.”

“Thanks to this new technology, we were even able to light specific scenes, such as the main menu, taking into consideration light reflections on the trucks and other reflective surfaces to make them shine and look more realistic than ever.”

Despite moving to Unreal Engine 5, Monster Jam Showdown is speeding onto the last-generation PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch consoles. Expect these versions to have some visual compromises. “Working on consoles of different generations was a real challenge that pushed us to truly understand the core elements of the game that we could or couldn’t adapt to make the game run on all these consoles.”

Hot Wheels Unleashed had excellent post-release support with new vehicles, environments, and themed expansions, and this will continue in Showdown. Alongside new trucks (Showdown will feature 66 trucks, including DLC), Showdown players can look forward to a new map expansion set in Hawaii.

“We’ve created an extensive plan to offer players new free and paid content. We’ll release new Monster Jam trucks and a new environment that will include new tracks and a new Arena,” Spada confirmed.

Milestone hints at post-launch VR support

Considering that Milestone hasn't ventured into virtual reality yet, it’s unsurprising that Monster Jam Showdown won’t support VR at launch. However, Spada hinted that Milestone is considering adding VR support in a future update, fully immersing you into the world of Monster Jam.

“Let’s just say that VR support has been a topic that keeps coming back frequently during creative meetings...,” he teased.

Monster Jam Showdown launches on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC on August 29, 2024. Pre-ordering the Big Air Edition gives you up to three days of early access from August 26.

Are you looking forward to racing giant trucks in Monster Jam Showdown? Let us know in the comments below.

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