Amongst its many riches, Wheel World is a reminder that a game can appear to be constructed from familiar pieces while still feeling entirely unfamiliar to play.
Wheel World review
- Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
- Developer: Messhoff
- Platform: Played on PC/Xbox Series X
- Availability: Out now on PC (Steam), PS5 and Xbox Series X/S (Game Pass).
To put it another way, there are a lot of elements I tell myself that I sort of recognised rattling around inside this open-world racing adventure. Races see you collecting letters to spell out words, a la Tony Hawk. You unlock parts of the map, or at least reveal its many secrets, by visiting shrines, in a manner that could come from any number of Ubisoft mega-games. And when you’re right in the action, alternate routes are closed off with massive glowing chevrons, while you earn boosts for doing dangerous things like getting air or toying with oncoming traffic. Burnout, sweet Burnout, is that you?
But in truth, Tony Hawk, Ubisoft and Burnout are nowhere to be seen in the flow of the game from moment to moment. Or perhaps it’s better to say they may be seen at times but never truly felt. And while I love Tony Hawk and Burnout, this is good news. Because when it comes to the feeling, Wheel World is its own thing. It’s exhilarating and brisk and rather personal – I want to say human-sized – in terms of its focus and sense of scale. At its best, it’s even quietly restorative. On a bad day, playing Wheel World will make you feel a bit better.
And that’s because of the vehicle at the heart of it, I think. Wheel World is a story about bikes and a world in thrall to bikes. There are religions surrounding bikes here, along with gods and ancient myths of wheels and drive chains and saddles, and all that ties into a story in which you’re chosen by ancient biking spirits and asked to perform a neglected ritual. What this amounts to is bombing around a couple of compact open worlds and engaging various groups in either checkpoint or point-to-point races as you rebuild a magical bike whose parts have been scattered. Fine. All good. But you do it on bikes! Not motorbikes! Pushbikes!