Monster Energy Supercross 5 Beginner's Guide: How to excel off-road on two wheels

The official 2022 Supercross game has finally landed! Monster Energy Supercross 5 has been released this week and we're impressed. Check out exactly why in our full review of the game.

MESX5's learning curve has been flattened compared to 4, but it's still a difficult game to get a hang of. Never fear though, we're here to help with our beginner's guide.

Keep reading to see all of our tips and tricks for newbies in MESX5!

The correct settings

Before you go into your first Career event, you need to make sure you're using the correct difficulty settings. Before starting a race in single player mode, head over to the event options menu to change up your settings.

If you're new to motorcycle games, you're best off going on the easier side of the Riding Aids. This means enabling the likes of assisted steering, semi-automatic rider weight and the game's rewind feature. There's no shame in this, and you can always take these off the more confident you get with the bike.

Don't forget about the AI either, these can be changed in the Race Options sub-menu on the right. This is also where you can change the length of the race and whether to enable qualifying.

When it comes to the AI, you need to be careful and find the right balance. If you're miles clear of them after a few corners, turn up the difficulty. If they're unreachable for you, do the reverse. The AI should be challenging, but not to the level where they're unbeatable, it's all about finding a happy medium.

Practice makes perfect

MESX5 isn't an easy game, let's make that clear. If you're new to bike games or this series, you will need time to adjust. So, instead of getting your Career Mode off to a rocky start, you should head over to the Single Events and Time Attack modes.

In fact, somewhere that's even better to practice your skills is the game's Free Roaming option. With no pressure from the clock, nor the AI, free riding around some of the game's tracks provides a great opportunity to learn the bike. All three of these modes can be accessed via the Single Player tab in the main menu.

You need to put time into the game mode that will help you the most though. If you're looking to get quicker, Time Trial is best. For those aiming to improve their wheel-to-wheel skills against the AI, a Single Race is ideal. For those looking to learn the bike, Free Roam is the one for you.

Futures Academy

For those that like a more regimented training regime, the Futures Academy is where you need to head. The training section to the game has been revamped this year and progresses in terms of difficultly rather than being split into categories.

You will have to do these in order though, so if you know the very basics of riding the bike, you will have to get through these first. You can replicate race weekends in here though, by heading over to the Theory Lessons section.

Skills to pay the bills

When you start your single player career, you'll need to make sure that you do the work off-track as well as on it. When you're in the Career menu, you need to head over to the Skills section. This tree shows how you progress the skills of your rider throughout their career.

This has received an upgrade since MESX4 and is now split into five categories. Cornering, Bike Control, Braking, Scrub and Physical Resistance are the sections you have available. Most are self-explanatory, but you need to know that the Scrub section is basically the drifting stat.

You need to upgrade depending on the areas you're struggling in. So, if you're falling off the bike over jumps, upgrade Physical Resistance and Bike Control. For those struggling in the corners, upgrade Cornering and Scrub. If you're flying off the road, you need better brakes.

When in doubt, or if nothing jumps to mind, go for the Physical Resistance, as this will help prevent injuries as the season goes on.

Second chance

Nobody's perfect, not even the professionals, we all make errors when racing. Thankfully, Milestone have kept this in mind with MESX5, as the rewind feature has remained in the game.

There is a mechanic in game that will automatically recover your bike when you go off the circuits for a few seconds. This is helpful, but you'll still lose around five seconds compared to the AI for each off.

So, if you're wanting to limit the damage that a mistake has made to your race, you should use a rewind. You'll only have a limited number of these (3), so don't use them for little mistakes, save them for the big stuff. You'll also only be able to use them to rewind around ten seconds, so don't wait around to use them.