MAVRIX By Matt Jones Review

Mountain biking games have always occupied a fairly small corner of the sports genre. While skateboarding, football, and racing games continue to receive big-budget releases every year, downhill biking has mostly been left to niche experiences that appeal to dedicated fans. That's what makes MAVRIX By Matt Jones such an interesting project.

Instead of simply building another arcade sports title, the developers set out to recreate the feeling of exploring a vast mountain resort where every trail, jump, and downhill run feels like part of a single connected world. With professional freerider Matt Jones involved throughout development, the game clearly aims to capture the spirit of modern mountain biking rather than simply turning it into another score-chasing sports game.

The team behind the project also deserves some recognition for attempting something much larger than many expected. Rather than focusing on a collection of isolated tracks, MAVRIX By Matt Jones offers a fully connected open world built around exploration and progression.

You aren't simply selecting races from a menu. Instead, you are encouraged to ride across forests, mountain peaks, parks, and hidden locations while gradually discovering new challenges. That ambition immediately sets the game apart from many competitors, even as it introduces several design hurdles along the way.

The experience is all about Matt Jones.

Almost every system reflects his riding style, his career, and his love for technical mountain biking. The game constantly encourages you to try different lines, to learn how to control your bike through tough terrain, to hone your skills rather than just mashing the accelerator from start to finish. It wants you to think like a rider rather than a racer, which gives MAVRIX By Matt Jones its own personality within the genre.

Even with those ambitions, expectations naturally become much higher. Building a large open-world sports game means every element has to work together. The riding mechanics, progression, exploration, multiplayer features, and overall presentation need to support one another. MAVRIX By Matt Jones succeeds in several of these areas, but it also leaves enough room for improvement that you can almost see the better version of the game hiding underneath what already exists.

Once you begin your journey, the focus isn't on delivering a dramatic story with major characters or cinematic cutscenes. Instead, your career is built around becoming a better rider. You begin with a basic vehicle, learning the controls, and then work your way up by participating in events spread across the huge map, earning your reputation. Your goal is to earn sponsorships, improve your reputation, unlock equipment, and climb online leaderboards while continuing to discover everything the world has to offer.

That simple premise actually works in the game's favor.

Instead of forcing unnecessary storytelling into a sports title, MAVRIX By Matt Jones lets the mountain become the main attraction. Every trail is an opportunity to hone your skills, every hidden place is a reward for curiosity. The game's always nudging you to go off the obvious path and explore places that don't seem to matter at first. You'll find collectibles, new riding zones, and technical challenges that will test the full control of your bike.

The range of activities also helps to keep exploration from getting stale. They are part of the overall package, but only one part, with standard downhill races forming a large chunk of the experience. Slopestyle events help you focus more on tricks and style, and hitting clean combos rather than just racing against the clock. Technical challenges become slower, more accurate tests in which balance and accuracy are far more important than speed. These sections reward patience and careful positioning, rather than encourage reckless riding.

Exploration itself seems like a different game mode.

The map is largely uncharted until you actually ride into it, so every trip across the mountain is a worthwhile venture. Chairlifts are convenient shortcuts back to higher elevations, so you can quickly get back to downhill routes you've already unlocked without having to constantly climb the mountain yourself. At the same time, simply driving through forests and trails will often lead you to hidden areas containing collectibles, new events, or shortcuts that aren't immediately obvious.

Collectibles also factor in more than you think. Scattered around are letters that spell the name of the game, slowly opening up restricted areas, encouraging you to pay attention to your surroundings, rather than just races.

Each region has wooden cutouts of professional riders hidden away as a reward for exploration and further progression. These activities never replace the main events, but they give you reasons to keep wandering instead of opening up the map and immediately picking another objective.

The overall structure succeeds because it consistently offers multiple directions to follow.

One session might involve chasing leaderboard times on a difficult black diamond trail. The next could be spent hunting for collectibles, discovering a hidden technical challenge in an abandoned area, or simply riding through the countryside while learning how different trails connect. That freedom creates a much more relaxed pace than in many traditional sports, allowing you to create your own route rather than follow a strict sequence of events.

Where MAVRIX By Matt Jones really begins to stand apart is in how it approaches riding itself. Unlike pure arcade racers, every trail asks you to think ahead. Charging downhill at maximum speed might feel exciting for a few seconds, but the terrain quickly reminds you that control matters more than bravery. Tight corners, sudden drops, narrow paths, and unexpected jumps will punish careless riding, so it's best to memorize each trail before attempting faster runs.

Learning each route gradually becomes one of the most rewarding parts of the game. The first few runs are normally a bit rough as you go wide on corners, land awkwardly, or miss the optimal racing line completely. Every run after that is much easier because you already know where to brake, when to pump through corners, and what jumps can be boosted safely. It is not a quick reflex but familiarity and repetition that bring success.

There are also two types of bikes available, each taking a different approach.

The enduro bike is your go-to for everything from technical trails and trick sections to general exploration. There is enough versatility to comfortably handle most situations in the open world. At the same time, the downhill bike is like it was made for high-speed descents. Better braking, stiffer suspension, and increased stability make it the obvious choice when long downhill races are the focus.

Mastering tricks takes far longer than just learning how to complete a trail. Whips, scrubs, backflips, bunny hops, and style landings all require good timing, and throwing them out randomly usually ends in an awkward crash. Instead of treating these as separate from your runs, the game naturally teaches you to combine these flashy button combinations as you go.

That learning curve can feel steep at first, but it provides some of the game's most rewarding moments. It's a good sense of achievement when you nail a hard technical section without wiping out, or when you manage to string together a clean downhill run after trying and failing a few times. MAVRIX By Matt Jones doesn't give you the easy wins; it demands that you get better with practice, so every successful run is something you have earned.

The physics model is somewhere between realism and accessibility, and that balance defines much of the experience. MAVRIX By Matt Jones doesn't try to simulate every tiny detail of real mountain biking. Still, it also refuses to become a completely arcade-style game where every jump lands perfectly regardless of your input. Weight transfer, momentum, braking, suspension, and rider positioning all influence how your bike behaves, meaning every movement has consequences.

Speed is one of the best examples of this design philosophy.

Going as fast as possible almost always feels tempting, especially on long downhill sections, but speed without control quickly becomes your biggest enemy. Enter a corner too aggressively and you'll either overshoot the trail or lose enough momentum to ruin your run. Learning exactly when to brake, when to pump through turns, and when to stay off the brakes entirely becomes just as important as knowing where the finish line is.

Jumping follows a similar pattern. Bunny hops, boosts, and takeoffs depend heavily on timing instead of simply pressing a button at the right moment. A well-timed preload launches you cleanly over gaps, while poor timing often leaves you casing jumps or landing awkwardly on the downslope. Tricks look satisfying when everything comes together, but they demand commitment because every whip, flip, or scrub slightly changes your bike's position in the air.

The physics aren't flawless, though. In longer sessions, you will sometimes get inconsistent landings or times where the bike reacts unexpectedly after clipping scenery or landing on uneven terrain. Some jumps are more powerful than you think; some crashes are worse than you think. These moments aren't frequent enough to ruin the experience, but they do serve as reminders that the physics system sometimes struggles to maintain the consistency it strives for.

Those mechanics are the game's biggest strengths and most obvious weaknesses.

On the upside, every successful run is really rewarding, because it's clear it's due to your own riding improving, not to some generous assists. Every time you go back to a trail, you seem to shave a few more seconds off your personal best and find a cleaner racing line. The different types of bikes also offer real diversity rather than just cosmetic ones, and each challenge has a clear goal.

The only drawback is that it takes a little while to get used to. The tutorial is designed to teach you the basics, but it's up to you to learn the more sophisticated methods through experimentation. Some features, like first-person riding, advanced trick combos, and some of the technical riding elements, aren't really explained all that well, and you'll be left to figure them out for yourself. That system is good for committed players, but newcomers will probably find their first few hours more confusing than challenging.

The game's open-world design is both a plus and a minus. Exploration is rewarding and interesting to discover, but the map can sometimes feel too empty between the main activities. You have spells where you're just jumping from one thing to the next with not much in between. More environmental interaction or dynamic activities would have made the mountain feel even more alive.

Multiplayer is one area where MAVRIX By Matt Jones has plenty of long-term potential.

You can join friends, explore together, compare times, and compete through online leaderboards spread across the different trails. Racing against recorded times rather than artificial opponents creates a satisfying competitive loop, especially once you begin chasing higher rankings on more difficult tracks.

Even without traditional head-to-head racing dominating every session, the leaderboard system constantly encourages you to return and improve your previous performances. While cooperative activities remain fairly limited compared to dedicated multiplayer sports games, simply riding across the mountain with other players adds another layer of enjoyment that fits naturally within the game's open-world structure.

Progression revolves around earning experience through nearly everything you do. You earn XP naturally by completing races, slopestyle events, and technical challenges, but the game also rewards you for exploring, hiding additional progression throughout the map. Finding collectible MAVRIX letters, smashing wooden rider cutouts, discovering new trails, and uncovering hidden regions all contribute toward leveling your rider.

That variety keeps progression feeling active because you're rarely forced into repeating the same event over and over.

As you level up you will unlock more opportunities to get sponsors. The other progression is through sponsors, and you get rewarded for consistent racing and encouraged to keep improving in different types of events. Sponsorships are more than just cosmetic rewards; they reinforce the sense that your rider is on a professional career path in mountain biking.

Exploration is just as important in the XP system. Every region tracks your overall completion percentage, including discovered collectibles and hidden objectives. That makes completionists feel rewarded without forcing casual players to collect everything immediately. Even if you're simply riding around the mountain looking for new trails, you'll usually stumble across enough activities to continue earning steady experience.

The progression system itself is fun because it rewards curiosity rather than repetitive grinding. You're constantly earning small amounts of XP during normal gameplay, whether you're completing races, smashing collectibles, finding hidden locations, or trying out technical challenges. Very little feels unnecessary, which makes long sessions surprisingly relaxing, despite the demanding riding mechanics.

Microtransactions are far less convincing by contrast.

The usual progression system is complemented by cosmetic purchases, which offer more customization options that don't significantly affect gameplay. It makes sense that modern games will have ongoing content with optional purchases, but it feels like an unnecessary addition in a premium-priced sports title.

The cosmetics aren't varied enough to get too excited about either. The whole system feels disconnected from the otherwise satisfying progression loop. Luckily, the fundamentals of riding are still there without having to shell out more cash, but the store still feels like an unnecessary addition rather than a meaningful one.

Visually, MAVRIX By Matt Jones has some impressive moments. The open-world mountain is genuinely attractive, with forests, rocky hillsides, winding trails, farmland, industrial sections, and hidden areas all blending into a believable riding destination. Watching sunlight filter through the trees before dropping into another downhill section creates some memorable scenery, especially from a first-person perspective.

The scale of the world also deserves praise.

Instead of feeling like a collection of separate tracks, the environment does a good job of making you feel like you're roaming one giant mountain resort. Chairlifts that ascend to higher altitudes, trails that span valleys, and natural landmarks all contribute to the illusion that every place is part of a single landscape.

The bike animations are pretty convincing, too. It is like you are riding a real mountain bike, not a floating camera, with the suspension movement, rider positioning, jumps, and landings. Crashes can look a little awkward sometimes, but successful runs manage to keep a satisfying sense of momentum throughout each descent.

The audio is surprisingly well-suited to riding. The terrain you ride over will influence tire noise, and impacts, jumps, and landings all carry enough weight to emphasize the bike's movement. Rob Warner's commentary on the downhills really adds so much personality and excitement, and he keeps the successful runs energetic without being repetitive.

Performance is usually consistent on modern hardware, though the game's ambitious open world does require fairly capable systems.

The detailed environments and longer draw distances are most beneficial for high-end PCs, whereas consoles still provide a generally smooth experience during regular gameplay. There are still the odd technical hiccups, but overall, the performance is solid enough to let you focus on the riding rather than constantly interrupting you.

MAVRIX By Matt Jones is ultimately a passion game. You can tell the people behind this really tried to make a mountain biking experience that feels different than your traditional sports game. Rather than demanding action every second, it encourages you to take your time, master each trail, experiment with different riding styles, and improve over time with practice. That philosophy gives the game an identity that many sports titles struggle to achieve.

It isn't perfect, and some of its rough edges are impossible to ignore. The learning curve occasionally feels steeper than necessary, the world could use more activity between events, and the microtransactions never feel justified in a full-priced release. Those issues stop the game from fully reaching the incredible experience it occasionally hints at during its best moments.

If you enjoy mountain biking or simply appreciate sports games that reward skill instead of shortcuts, there's plenty to like here.

Exploring the mountain, mastering technical trails, improving leaderboard times, and slowly becoming a better rider create a progression loop that remains satisfying long after the tutorial ends. The freedom to approach the world however you want also helps each session feel different from the last.

At $39.99, MAVRIX By Matt Jones sits in a difficult price bracket. The foundation is undeniably enjoyable, and the riding itself becomes increasingly rewarding as your skills improve. However, the overall package still falls short of matching the value offered by some competing sports games at the same price. If you're specifically looking for an open-world mountain biking experience, it offers enough unique ideas to justify your attention. For everyone else, waiting for a discount makes far more sense.