Welcome to the future.

Trials Fusion is the most recent entry into the Trials franchise from RedLynx and Ubisoft, building on the successful physics-based racing formula found in the previous titles. As maddeningly difficult and ridiculously entertaining as ever, Trials Fusion provides players with a wonderful combination of fun, frustration, and finely honed gameplay.

Let’s get this out of the way right now: Trials Fusion is difficult. Like, really difficult. However, much like Trials Evolution, RedLynx has done a wonderful job of gradually ramping up the difficulty. While early levels might still require a couple of tries until they’re perfected, the later stages are often difficult enough to turn more casual players away from the game. For any other game (or even some franchises like Dark Souls) that might be enough to keep some players away; however, Trials Fusion offers enough variety and fun in the earlier parts of the game to justify a purchase anyway.

Upon first booting up the game, players are greeted with a slick and futuristic menu system and a synth-rock track that continually proclaims “Welcome to the future,” letting them know from the start that the environments and general feel of Trials Fusion is going to be a departure from previous entries. Where Trials games have previously found themselves focused around warehouses and rugged outdoor terrains, Trials Fusion takes players through sleek, industrial areas, jungle-based construction sites, and sunsets in the desert – sometimes all within the same level.

All of these locations are absolutely gorgeous to look at, with stages often constructing themselves as players careen along roller-coaster-esque ramps and flip wildly through the air. Though this is hardly the best looking new-gen title available, it is a pretty major step up from previous Trials games. It should be noted, however, that Trials Fusion runs natively at 1080p on PlayStation 4 and 900p after a day-one update on Xbox One, though both versions of the game will be running at 60 fps.

Also introduced Trials Fusion is the inclusion of a trick system, which is mapped to the right stick. Players will need to combine both the bike’s movement with the rider’s positioning in order to perform tricks and score points on the several FMX tracks placed throughout the game. While these offer a wonderful change of pace from the more traditional Trials courses, the prospect of mastering the trick system is even more daunting than the racing itself.

Fortunately, tricks are not confined to FMX tracks, and play a fairly major role in the challenges added to each track. In addition to racing for medals on each track, players are presented with a set of three challenges, ranging from performing certain tricks at certain locations on the track to carrying a ball from one spot to another. These offer an even greater level of replayability to an already phenomenally replayable game, placing yet another beautifully crafted layer of challenge on an already excellent game.

As if Trials Fusion needed anything else going for it, the game also includes a robust level editor, and though it takes a great deal of getting used to, the possibility is there to create just about any Trials run you can think up. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to spend any time with user-created levels for this review (or the four-player multiplayer), though the prospect of seeing what the community comes up with is truly exciting.

Trials Fusion does exactly what a sequel to such an impressive arcade franchise should do – provide players with enough of a similar experience to previous titles while offering heaps of new content to keep things fresh. Though the difficulty of the later levels might be enough to turn some players off, the game offers enough fun and accessibly challenging content to keep everyone racing for a good long time.

Review Statement: A PlayStation 4 digital download of this game was provided by the publisher for the sake of this review.

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