More than two years ago we decided where the MotorStorm festival should head next, and I’ve been itching to talk about it ever since. Now, as part of the global announcement, and with E3 just around the corner, it’s so exciting to finally be able to share some information about the MotorStorm Apocalypse.

Here are some of the headlines…

You May Have Heard…We’re Heading to the City!

But this is no ordinary city. In the same way that the first MotorStorm was set in Monument Valley, and MotorStorm Pacific Rift was set on ‘The Island’, inspired by Hawaii and other Pacific islands, we’ve set this MotorStorm in ‘The City’, inspired by the West Coast of America, and, in particular, the Bay Area of California.

MotorStorm’s brand of racing is not about ‘going urban’ though. We all know that the lunatic ‘Stormers would take every expectation about street racing and turn it upside-down. So this is what they’ve done. Welcome to Brutal Urban Off-Road Racing!

Post Apocalyptic? NO!

The city has been abandoned and somewhat damaged after a tremor. When the ‘Stormers find this out, they head straight in. Pretty soon, two things become clear: it isn’t completely empty and Mother Nature isn’t done yet!

Throughout the game the city will be ripped to pieces, in real-time, as you race. Routes will be affected, as will our emergent gameplay.

Buggies using collapsing walls as half-pipes. Big Rigs on the rooftops of skyscrapers as they collapse. Superbikes gunning into the basements of enormous rifts. Supercars flicking on their headlights to barrel through the subways and sewers. Multi-vehicle pile ups on giant bridges as they buckle and twist. Driving through someone’s office and smashing up their desks. It’s all there.

Two groups have also stayed behind, and neither takes too kindly to MotorStorm’s arrival. I’ll talk more about them another time, but for now I’ll say that when they realise there isn’t going to be much of a city left, they start to destroy it too.

This isn’t post-apocalyptic. It’s apocalyptic. You are there when it happens. It’s survival racing.

Variety, Chronology and Depth are King

We’ve listened to everything people said about our previous games and, as a result, one of our priorities is to make a more satifsying overall game experience. In our single-player mode, every race is unique. When a building comes down it stays down. When you race a track again, the buildings will still be down and the MotorStorm crew will have carved yet more routes into the ruined landscape. The only time you’ll see the same thing twice is when you choose to. Underscoring this chronology is the fact that you’ll get to see the game from three different viewpoints.

Nothing annoys me more than the notion that an accessible action racer must also be shallow or plain dumb. So once you have experienced the single-player journey, the true depth of our title will come to the fore. Our overhauled ‘Wreckreation’ mode has been heavily influenced by the best online titles: from shooters and action adventures, RPGs and platformers. It features:

• Sixteen player online multiplayer.
• Four player split-screen.
• Combinations of the two. Play with three friends in the living room against 12 more online.
• Massive vehicle customisation. Change vinyls, vehicle parts, vehicle shapes and more. Upload them to the community site and share them with others. They automatically work on all vehicle types, and include your PSN ID.
• Vehicle perks. Modify your handling, boosting and offensive abilities as you unlock new perks.
• A wealth of rankings to progess through online with associated rewards and recognition.
• Stacks of online rewards to earn and persistent progress giving the most determined and successful racers the status and recognition they deserve.
• Persistent matchmaking. Keep your party together throughout your gaming session.
• A Game Mode Creator. From a completely blank canvas you can design your own game rules and victory conditions, play them online, and incorporate them into tournaments.

Lots More

We’ve got a lot more to reveal too; things like replacing loading screens with cut-scenes that finally reveal what it’s like to be a part of the MotorStorm subculture, to changes to handling and boosting, to the five completely new vehicle classes making their way to this festival.

The end of the world…is just the beginning.

Let me know your thoughts.