Wheel World

Wheel World is an excellent game, bringing a realistic weightiness from the bike handling and merging it with a beautiful world that's a joy to explore.

That choice, to ride how you want, to shape your experience not just through specs but through connection, is the heart of Wheel World. It’s a title that take you by surprise offering more than expected through its flexibility and reverence.

Wheel World is truly an ode to cycling, masterfully represented in its beautifully stylised world, rich with content and secrets. Despite a few technical issues and inconsistencies, it provides a relaxing trip to a colorful world of cycling.

Wheel World perfectly captures the joyful feeling of pedaling with the wind on your face and in your hair. While, on one hand, the decision to focus on a more relaxed and open-minded setting transformed the game into a splendid bike ride simulator, punctuated by races, on the other, we felt that narrative and progression were pushed to the sidelines. The story remains a fun, background story, and the system for obtaining new bike parts gradually becomes less central due to a lower-level challenge and some components that, once obtained, make our ride nearly unbeatable. It remains a very enjoyable experience lasting about five hours, accompanied by a high-quality synth-pop soundtrack.

The separate districts feel distinct and while they’re not interesting to explore per se, they do provide a pleasant backdrop as you go from race to race. In the end, I was just hunting for more ridiculous bike upgrades, including a frame that replaced my sleek bike with a massive hotdog. Wheel World isn’t everything I’ve ever wanted in a cycling game, but I appreciate all its polish - the sort of chill game you stick on for a couple of hours in the evening, do some races, and call it a day.