Mavrix has long been touted as the next game meant to carry the torch for mountain biking enthusiasts, and our review breaks down whether or not the title delivers now that it’s finally available as a full release.
The premise behind Mavrix is simple enough. Players are unleashed on a lush open world full of steep mountain bike trails, and are tasked with finding those trails and racing down them in both speed and style.
There’s little doubting that Mavrix accomplishes its most central mission, which is to provide an intense, high-speed mountain biking experience. Where the game falters, however, is in its attempt to fully surround that experience with content. Mavrix may have come out of early access, but its full release still feels like something of a work in progress.
The Good:
- Mavrix delivers on its promise of high-speed downhill thrills
- Getting into a groove of trail discovery and riding can feel great
The Bad:
- Riding can be interrupted with inconsistent behaviors
- Once explored, the game’s open world can feel empty
- Some questionable design choices
Review Details:
- Reviewed on: PC
- Platforms available: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox
- Official release date: July 16, 2026
Mavrix brings MTB to your home screen
The core MTB experience is what most players are going to first concern themselves with here, and in that regard, Mavris largely delivers. This is a game that’s foremost about streaking down steep trails, whipping around tight dirt corners, and dodging obstacles. Mountain biking at speed is a high-octane hobby, and Mavrix captures the feeling well.
It’s undeniably fun to zip down a dramatic trail, dynamically adjusting to each twist and turn, and managing big air across jumps. At its best, Mavrix allows players to achieve something approaching a flow state of riding. As soon as one trail finishes, it’s easy to feel motivated to start it back over again or to hop right into the next one.
Options for doing so are somewhat limited. Once discovered and explored, trails can be run repeatedly in the quest for the best possible time, or they can be raced. But those races are small, and depend on other online players being available.
There are also Mavrix Cup events, but despite the fanfare they receive, these are really just attempts at centralizing everyone’s timed runs onto one particular track.
The game does offer a limited range of tricks, as well as trick competitions. But this aspect of Mavrix felt like a lesser part of the game during our review. It takes emphasis away from the game’s high-speed strengths and creates more opportunities for its at-times questionable collision detection to come into play.
This is where we have to address the seeming inconsistencies that do exist when riding in Mavrix. There will be times when the player’s bike will almost inexplicably clip against some obstacle or at an odd angle, dismounting the player and effectively ending a run. Other times, awkward landings and terrain can be navigated with little problem. Similar lines might send one player hurtling forward along their run, while another sees their rider ragdoll awkwardly up into the sky.
It contributes to the general feeling that the game may not be fully baked. And that feeling really comes through when zooming out and looking at the game’s open world.
Mavrix has an open world with a limited horizon
It’s hard not to look at the open world of Mavrix and think of the popular and successful Forza Horizon series of racing games. The vibes here are very similar, including the high-energy radio station blaring tunes and excited squawking about the various trails and races.
The trick to Forza Horizon’s open world is that it’s easy to explore and is packed full of diverse activities to take part in as one pleases. By contrast, the open world of Mavrix feels rather empty.
There are few tracks available to ride relative to its scope. But even beyond the number of curated racing paths, there just isn’t much going on here. Players can expect to see a lot of trees, a good number of dirt trails, and not much else.
There are a few points of interest scattered about the game’s map, such as a downed aircraft that can be used as a basis for a stunt run. But these scattered elements almost highlight the game’s emptiness, given how few they are and how they seem to have been dropped onto an otherwise barren landscape.
Navigating that map can be its own trial. It’s not always clear which terrain can be navigated and which might just cause the player to glitch out. Riding off the beaten path almost seems discouraged, through the combination of there being few things available to find, inconsistencies in where players can reach, and constraints around travel.
Mavrix does have a fast travel option, but if you want to appear most anywhere beyond your original starting point, you’ll have to pay. You can grind some in-game currency to open up fast-travel points, but that same currency is also used to purchase gear for your rider.
It is perhaps no surprise that Mavrix offers an additional means of getting around the map: microtransactions.
Players can purchase in-game currency to their heart’s content, and use it to immediately deck out their rider and open the entire explored map up for quick travel. It’s hard to feel good about this aspect of the game, particularly when the game feels in some other ways underdeveloped.
We mentioned earlier that races require matching up with other players online. It’s worth noting that Mavrix is an always-online game, and during our review we did encounter a couple of issues connecting to the game’s server that temporarily prevented us from playing. It doesn’t seem a widespread issue, but it’s always something worth noting when a game requires an online connection.
In terms of its presentation, Mavrix is a mixed bag. The immediate surroundings on most trails look great, and developers at Third Kind Games have done well in conveying a sense of speed while maintaining sufficient detail.
On the flipside, textures aren’t always quite so pretty to look at, and distant views in particular can suffer.
The aforementioned radio station works pretty well at establishing the game’s intended vibes, but just like the open world of Mavrix, it’s ultimately lacking in content. Players will quickly begin to hear the same songs and radio conversations repeat themselves ad nauseam, and there’s no alternative station to tune into.
Mavrix is ultimately a tough game to score. There’s a lot to like about its core experience, and it does deliver on its promise of intense mountain-biking action. For big MTB fans, that may be enough to justify diving in here. But with a $40 USD price tag, the game’s full release feels disappointingly barren.
The Bottom Line: Mavrix delivers high-speed mountain biking action, but struggles to justify its price tag with a lack of content and meaningful options.
Score: 6.5/10
