"Trials Fusion" To Race Into Stores This April

Philip Tang ’15 / Emertainment Weekly Staff Writer

Trials Evolution, released in 2012, was a hilariously fun motocross racing game with a distinctly tongue-in-cheek charm.  Now, 2 years later Ubisoft and Redlynx are planning to release a sequel called Trials Fusion to imbue the next generation consoles with some much needed motorcycle-crashing flavor.
Part of why Evolution was so fun was thanks to its physics-based gameplay.  Fusion promises to not only continue that tradition, but to expand it as well.  Mid-air flips and spontaneously ejecting the rider from the bike’s seat helplessly into the air (or straight into the ground) are just the beginning.  Newly added is the Tricks feature, allowing the rider to perform various ostentatious actions in mid-air, such as hanging upside down with only one hand on the bike as it flips maddeningly through the skies.  The tricks are meant to award points, but they’ll definitely award some hilarity too if a rider were to crash while trying to show off.  Thanks to the game’s silly ragdoll physics engine, even the most frustrating of crashes end up looking so over-the-top that it’s hard not to immediately feel better from the ensuing humor.

With this being the first foray into the next generation for the Trials series, graphical enhancements are an obvious addition.  But there will also be new environments.  From the dark warehouses of the earlier Trials games, to the outdoor environments of Evolution, Fusion will be taking players and their vehicles to an outlandish futuristic setting.  From the available concept art and videos, it appears this means players can expect to see very intricate and smoothly curved buildings (the hallmark of futuristic sci-fi environs) – and to crash into them often.
Fusion will be going multi-platform, coming out on Xbox One, PC (via Steam), and PlayStation 4, marking the first time the series lands on a Sony console.  Despite being designated as the Trials series’ leap into the next generation, the game is also still being released on Xbox 360, probably because the previous two entries in the series called it home.  Sorry, PlayStation 3 owners. Also Wii U owners.
The digital download version of the game will cost $19.99.  A physical boxed retail version, which includes a Season Pass for forthcoming downloadable content, will be available for $39.99.  Fusion is expected to arrive on April 16, 2014 in North America.  Next-gen motorcycle explosions and ragdoll physics antics await!
Watch The Gameplay Trailer: