Free Update: MotorStorm RC Gets New Demo Tracks, New Features

Attention MotorStorm fans! MotorStorm RC — one of the most popular PSN games of the year — has just received a community-focused update and I’m here to give you all the details! Beginning today, MotorStorm RC fans will have access to new tracks to try out for free, experience fun and more accessible races, the chance to share challenges whenever you like, and recover lost medals! Please note that it can take up to an hour for the update to be available in all territories. You will be prompted to download this game update when you next fire up the game from the PS3 XMB or PS Vita LiveArea.

It doesn’t matter if you’re new to MotorStorm RC or if you’ve been playing from the start: This update makes MotorStorm RC better for you and your friends. I might be a little biased, but it’s definitely worth a look if you’ve got a PS3 or a PS Vita – and even more so if you have both! So please give it a go and tell your friends about it too.

Jamie Brayshaw: What does the update do for MotorStorm RC?
Paul Rustchynsky, Game Director: There’s been lots of activity in MotorStorm RC and there have been lots of stories shared about it, which we’ve been paying very keen attention to as we’ve continued to enhance and improve the game since it came out. Over and above lots of little ‘behind-the-scenes’ tweaks and adding a method for recovering lost medals, there are three key improvements in this update that will make a big difference to the quality of the experience for everyone: we’ve fine-tuned the campaign to make it easier, we’ve increased the opportunities for sending challenges, and we’ve changed which races can be played in the free trial. All in an effort to make sure that when you play this game, you and your friends get the most out of your time with it.

JB: How has the ‘Festival’ campaign been fine-tuned?
PR: Many of you told us that “the Festival gets too tricky too quickly” and the stats we see from the game backed this up, highlighting 23 races in particular that only a small percentage of people were able get all three medals on compared to the other races at that stage of the campaign. This wasn’t what we’d expected to see – the campaign is intended to be challenging but the progression should be smooth. By the time you reach the formidable Supercar events you should have built up your skills through every other race to be able to handle them!

The update re-tunes and re-balances these races, to iron out the unnatural spikes in difficulty and make the journey through the game more enjoyable overall. After a lot of testing it looks set to make a positive difference to the game, so we expect to see new players getting into the swing of the game and progressing much more fluently, although they’re still going to have to rise to the challenge to get every medal from every race and go on to earn the prestigious “Lunatics Unite” Platinum Trophy!

JB: Will these campaign changes affect those who already have the full-game?
PR: There’s more room for improvement in these races now, so if you were short of a few medals, or you were stuck at any point, go back and have another go!
And give it another go even if you’ve already mastered the Festival to see how much you can improve on your previous personal best – maybe you can get the edge on your friends and challenge them to do better, or rise above your rivals on the leaderboards!

JB: How does the update increase the opportunities for sending challenges?
PR: Sharing a performance you’re proud of with your friends and challenging them to do better is an exciting part of MotorStorm RC. It really keeps the game buzzing and it works so well because it’s up to you when and who you share it with. The way it’s always worked is that you’re given an opportunity to send your race result as a challenge at the end of the race itself – a point in the game carefully chosen in order to make it easy to send relevant challenges directly to friends, but not so easy (or forced) that it makes challenges become hollow or spammy. In that regard it has always worked perfectly and we’ve always had peace of mind that the thousands of challenges that are sent every day are done so meaningfully.
We came to learn – and again this is from community feedback and analysis of game stats – that while being able to send challenges at the end of the race works well, it is easy to miss the opportunity, so we’ve improved it. Now you can send challenges anytime after the event from the Leaderboards as well as at the end of the race as before. So if you ever wished you’d sent your awesome result as a challenge and though you’d missed your opportunity, you can go back and do it, whenever you like!

JB: What was the reason for changing the races that can be played in the free trial?
PR: There are a lot more vehicles, tracks and race modes in the full-game than you can see in the trial, so by changing up what’s available we’re giving everyone an opportunity to see more of the game for free. You’ll get a better feel for just how much value MotorStorm RC offers if you haven’t yet picked up the full-game. And it’s a good thing if you have got the full-game too as it means more opportunities for fresh competition with friends and rivals, which will improve your experience and might just be what you need to earn some of the challenge-based Trophies!

JB: What about any challenges sent from the original free trial?
PR: They’ll still be active, but from this point on, when you download and play the free trial you’ll get just one chance to play the original 4 events that were hand-picked by Evolution Studios, so you can take on any challenges you’ve been sent from them and settle any rivalries you’ve got going on them. This will be your last chance to play those events until you get the full-game though, because when you fire up the trial again you’ll get to play the 4 different events that have been chosen from the most popular events in the full-game right now.
We encourage you to play it (and tell your friends to play too) and please let us know what you think!

JB: How can my lost medals can be recovered?
PR: If you’ve had the misfortune of encountering the rare incidence of losing all of your campaign medals, please contact the PlayStation Community Team to recover your progress on the Official PlayStation Community Forums: http://community.us.playstation.com/.

Even though only a very small percentage of players have been affected, this was one of the most important changes we wanted to make in this update because as passionate game players we know that there’s nothing worse than losing something you’ve played hard to achieve!