Trackmania Reviews

Trackmania 2020 is a "free to play" game which was released in July 1 2020 which is a remaster of an older entry on the series named "Trackmania Nations" (also called "Trackmania Nations ESWC"), released in 2006 by Nadeo, which was later updated and re-released as the well-known "Trackmania Nations Forever", or for short, “TMNF”, released two years later, in 2008 as a free to play game on PC, which still is available to download to this day on Steam. It also has a paid/DLC version, which is the TM United Forever, or for short, TMUF, which compilled the previous releases (TM 2003, TM Power Up! TM Sunrise, TM Original, TM Sunrise Extreme, and TM ESWC). For me, it’s great to see TM ESWC/TMNF getting a remaster, since it was the game that introduced me to the Trackmania franchise all the way back to 2017, when I didn’t even own a Xbox One.

Trackmania is also a very old franchise, which turned 20 on November 21 this year (2023), with 14 entries since its first on 2003 (Trackmania 2003). To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Trackmania 2020, which is the latest entry in the franchise aswell, recieved an update where it added a "new" car (the Snow Car), featured in previous games on the franchise. It also added a custom campaign with 15 tracks with the new car, a new type of ground (wood) and a new achievement to the game.

MAIN TRACKMANIA FEATURES

Trackmania 2020 is probably the most arcade & competitive racing game out there at this moment. It consists of Time Trials and you need to master usually short, crazy racing tracks to set the best time you can. As a reward of your effort, you will recieve either a Bronze, Silver, Gold, or an Author medal, which is a secret green medal which you get by beating the author of the level best time. It's also one of those games "easy to pick up, hard to master". It has basics controls, which are accelerate, brake, turn, change the car POV, but a LOT of mechanics, including Drifts, Neoslides, Airbrakes, and so goes on, which explains the high TA ratio for this game.

Grounds and Mutators
This game has also a lot of different types of grounds your car can drive on, like road, dirt, grass, water, ice, plastic, magnet, sausage, sand, and wood, and a lot of mutators, like "Speed Turbos", which can make your car hit as much as 999 km/h, "Reactors Up and Down" which can make your car fly up or make it have as much downforce as a Formula 1 car, "No Engine" which makes your car impossible to accelerate further, "No Direction" which makes your car impossible to turn left or right, "Slow Motion", "Cruised Control", and the list goes on.

Seasonal Campaigns
The game provides 4 seasonal campaigns per year (Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall), each having 25 different tracks to race and set your times on, following the North Hemisphere Seasons (Winter Jan-Mar; Spring Apr-Jun; Summer Jul-Sep; Fall Oct-Dec). The campaigns are also divided in five colors (White, green, blue, red and black as last) each representing the difficulty level. The white levels are the easiests, while the black levels are the hardest. Each color have 5 tracks each. Starting by the next campaign, Winter 2024, which is releasing 9th of January 2024, there will only be 10 tracks available for free on each campaign, which is the main reason they added a new achievement for the game in the 20th Anniversary. making you sign one of the three subscription plans for the game, which provides more features, car liveries, track editor pieces, and so goes on, and I'll talk about the subscription system later.

Track of the Day & Cup of the Day
The game also has, since launch, a feature named "Track of the Day" or, for short, TotD. those are, as the name says, daily tracks, made by the community with its powerful track editor. Those tracks host, three times a day, a Cup of the Day (for short, CotD), which are daily events where you compete against other players on the world on the TotD of that specific day. But to get to play both TotD or CotD, you need to sign one of the subscriptions.

Track Editor
The game also provides a very complex and powerful track editor which is a core part of the game and of the franchise as a whole, which helped to model its dedicated community and mantained the franchise living for 20 years straight and will mantain for many more.

Royal
The game also has a Battle Royale mode named "Royal", which game mode puts you in a lobby of at max, 60 players and 20 teams, with 3 players in each team, represented by a random animal. You can play the Royal mode with your friends on the same party or with random players across the planet. It is a knockout mode taking place on five maps. Four of the maps are randomly selected from a pool of 30 maps, and one of the maps will always be the latest map added to the map pool. Royal maps consist of five segments, with difficulty levels progressively rising. The colors correspond to the difficulty levels in the same sequence as the seasonal campaigns, starting from the easiest with white, followed by green, blue, red, and concluding with black tracks, which pose the highest level of difficulty.

At the beginning of each round, both teams are positioned on the white segment of the track. Progressing through your current section or having a teammate do so allows your team to advance to the next segment, except when on the black section, which repeats upon completion. Completing any section, regardless of its color, adds one second of bonus time per player to your team, capped at 5 seconds. This bonus time comes into play at the round's conclusion, after the timer expires. The round is won by the team that finishes the highest number of sections, while teams with the fewest completed sections are eliminated. The number of teams eliminated varies depending on the remaining teams, typically ranging from 3 to 4 teams in most matches.

Ranked
Trackmania provides an inclusive Ranked 3v3 matchmaking mode centered around skill, accessible to all players. The matches follow a modified Teams gamemode, with a set points limit of 5. Players have the option to enter the queue either individually or with a maximum of two additional teammates, and also, voice chat is included as a feature to communicate with your teammates mid-match.

Upon entering the queue for a 3v3 Ranked match, you'll be paired with players of similar ranks, both as teammates and opponents. Following a 30-second warmup period once all the players are connected, the match starts. Each player initiates the track at the same time and contributes points to their team according to their finishing position. The round is claimed by the team that accumulates the highest number of points.

Also, the Ranked 3v3 is played on the current Seasonal Campaign maps. The map for your match will be randomly chosen out of the map pool based on the skill bracket of the lowest ranked player in the match. If your rank is Bronze, you will only queue only on the maps 1-10; Silver, 1-15; Gold 1-20; and Master all 25 tracks.

Arcade Channels
Arcade channels, or commonly referred to as arcade rooms, represent online multiplayer servers that showcase an array of game modes and tracks created by users. The prevalent game mode you'll see on these channels is "Time Attack," where the objective is to achieve the best possible time within a specified timeframe.

Free to play players have limited access to the Arcade. They have the option to play in either the Seasonal Campaign room or explore the dynamic Arcade Program, found in the top-right section of the Arcade menu. This program features various arcade sessions scheduled hourly, ensuring a diverse selection of tracks with different styles and challenges.

If you want to explore the other arcade rooms, you need to sign either one of the subscriptions. If you want to host a room of your own, you need to sign the Club subscription.

That's it for the main features of this game, let's head into the Subscriptions!

SUBSCRIPTIONS

The subscription system was a part of this game since launch, and it is a controversial addition to the game. So much that a good number of players considered to go back to the older games, like 'Trackmania Nations' or 'Trackmania Turbo'.

The subscription system is divided into three: Starter Access, Standard Access and Club Access. But this will change in January 9th with the releasing of the Winter 2024 Campaign.

Starter Access
This is the Free to Play access to this game, it's designed for players aiming to familiarize themselves with Trackmania, play in official campaigns, partake in casual competition, or explore map creation for the first time.

It gives access to:

- Training and ongoing Seasonal campaigns
- The revolving Arcade Channels
- Ranked and Royal game modes
- The complete map editor

However, access to other custom maps, public servers, in-game chat, custom skins, leaderboard ghosts, and club features (such as hosting your own rooms) is not available within the Starter Access.

Standard Access

This subscription is priced at 10€/year or the equivalent in your regional currency.

It's an ideal choice for players seeking a comprehensive experience with access to a diverse range of maps and online rooms, especially those interested in competitive play at an advanced level. This is also the ideal subscription you would sign if you are looking for a 100% completion on this game with all current 34 achievements.

The subscription provides additional privileges, including:

- Playing custom maps
- Participating in both current and past Tracks of the Day (TotD) and Seasonal official Campaigns
- Access to play the Cup of the Day (CotD)
- Access to public servers
- Access of the in-game chat
However, it does not grant access to custom skins, leaderboard ghosts, or club features such as hosting your own Arcade rooms or making your own club.

Club Access

Priced at 30€/year or the equivalent in your regional currency, this subscription also offers a three-year option for 60€ or your regional equivalent.

Geared towards dedicated players, it is designed for those who wish to contribute content in-game, showcase individuality through custom skins, and compete at the highest level.

The subscription provides complete access to the game, encompassing:

- Custom skins
- Leaderboard ghosts
- Participation in Trackmania World Tour events
- All club features, allowing you to host your own rooms, organize events, create campaigns, upload skins, and much more.

But, by 9th of January, with the addition of the Winter 2024 campaign, the subscription model will change, in Nadeo's words:
"Dear players, we would like to share with you an important upcoming change regarding the Trackmania offer.

While the console release has surpassed our highest expectations in terms of both amount of players and playing time, we need to adapt the quantity of content given for free with the Starter Access, to better match the way the game is played. We also have to be realistic and compare the situation with the efforts made by the studio.

As a result, we have decided that going forward, Trackmania Starter Access will give access to 10 free tracks at each new season.

Starter Access will continue to provide free access to Royal & Ranked modes (including the full tracks) and to the 10 first campaign tracks in solo and live menus. Starter Access players will also retain access to the Arcade channel, which allows them to explore and enjoy the finest creations crafted by fellow players. This will be applicable with the next Winter 2024 update.

We will also streamline the Trackmania offers by merging the content of both Standard and Club accesses into a single CLUB ACCESS offer, for an annual cost of 19.99€/$19.99. Players currently on Standard or Club accesses will maintain their status until their access expires. This will also be applicable with the next Winter 2024 update."

MY OPINION ABOUT TRACKMANIA
( ++ ) Trackmania 2020 is, atleast for me, my favorite game at the moment, it is just so good to play on really fast, crazy tracks, doing crazy turns and discovering new mechanics as you play the game, it's really a thriving experience, although I wouldn't recommend this game for someone who has no patience at all, because you will need it, and a lot, for this game, because you will crash, a lot, and you will restart, a lot, but you will get better as you play the game. It is a game of its on genre.
( ++ ) Nadeo still supports this game a lot, and will continue recieving new updates and more new and fresh content, like the Snow car in November 2023, which also brought a new achievement. Also, just like Trackmania² 4 games, TM Turbo, TMUF, and other entries in the franchise, they have plans to bring new environments to the game, and not just the Stadium enviroment, like in TM ESWC and TMNF. Also, they plan to bring new enviroments and new cars to the game (they brought the Snow (or Alpine) Car back to the game with the 20th year anniversary update). Those are exciting news, but for those who are for the Achievements, with those updates they might bring new achievements (like they did on their last update). making the list tougher than what already is.
( + ) The online is just insane, the CotDs are really fun to play against other players competing with themselves, trying to do their best time every single time. Ranked is fun too, but can get repetitive since it's the same 25 campaign tracks you're playing on for over 3 months, and the Royal is fun, especially with friends.
( +/- ) The track editor is amazing, It is a very complete editor to use. BUT the Console version of the game is very limited compared to the PC version, where they have access to put GPS (pretty much a ghost car that guides you throughout the track), Plugins (like adding custom parts) and other stuff. Also, they didn’t add some features included in the TM Turbo’s track editor, for example, (I know TM 2020's editor is better than Turbo's) like randomly generated tracks, or generate the design / environment for the track automatically, but in the other hand TM 2020’s added A LOT more stuff, like mutators and new pieces to work with.
( - ) I don't agree with the Subscription system. Why can't you just simply pay an X amount of money for a game? You're simply renting the game for an year or 3, that's just stupid honestly. Also, Nadeo’s marketing is horrible, like, instead of naming the Subscriptions like “1-Year Season Pass” but naming it “1-Year Standard Access” it feels like you’re renting the game. You can’t even customize your car the way you want or get access to the advanced track editor unless you sign one of the subscriptions. You need to pay to play tracks made by the community. It’s a weird system.
( -- ) I felt Trackmania 2020 had a design downgrade from its previous installment on xbox, Trackmania Turbo 2016. (on PC was Trackmania²: Valley). TMT 2016 felt so much alive and the enviroments felt better and more immersive. Trackmania 2020, for me, just feels so basic. We haven’t had another environment since its launch. Sure, it is a remaster of the stadium environment & stadium car from TMNF/TM ESWC, but it still feels so basic and static. I’d really like to drive in a Canyon environment on TM 2020, just like in TMT, or Valley, in Trackmania². I know TM 2020 was made to be more competitive and focused on multiplayer but still. Plus, I don't know why they haven't added a velocimeter to the console versions, like almost every single game before this one had one (TMNF had one, TM Turbo, TMUF, and some other entries). Plus, the UI is really ugly, and kinda confusing to be honest. Trackmania Turbo 2016 had a decent, simple, neat and not confusing UI. You knew where you were going. It took me a while to figure out where the "Kacky" online rooms were.