Monster Jam Showdown Review: A Must-Have For Monster Truck Fans

Monster Jam has a long history of video game adaptations from various developers dating back to the early 2000s. Even before then, we’ve revelled in crunching cars with monster trucks in games like Microsoft’s fabled Monster Truck Madness. Taking over the reins from Rainbow Studios, Milestone, the Italian racing specialist behind the MotoGP and Hot Wheels Unleashed games, is the latest developer to tackle the high-octane world of monster trucks with the newest entry in the series: Monster Jam Showdown. 

For the uninitiated, Monster Jam is a motorsport event where ridiculously powerful trucks with enormous wheels race and perform stunts in packed stadiums. It’s a distinctly American sport but is gaining traction around the world.

It also has a cult following in the UK. Last month, Monster Jam roared into Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, and we were lucky enough to see the action as part of a Showdown preview event. If you’ve never been to a monster truck show, it’s a spectacle unlike any other motorsport that brings out your inner child.  

Recent Monster Jam games have ranged from terrible (Crush It!) to mediocre (Steel Titans), so can Milestone breathe new life into the series?

Monster Truck Madness 

Monster truck enthusiasts can get behind the wheel of an assortment of officially licensed Monster Jam trucks, including fan favourites like the iconic Grave Digger, the shark-bodied Megaldon, and the Mad Max-inspired Max-D (Maximum Destruction). Alongside trucks from the current championship, Showdown celebrates Monster Jam’s history with a collection of classic trucks like the original Monster Mutt, a dog-themed truck with flapping ears. Other trucks like Axe, Jester, and Shaker also make their Monster Jam game debut in Showdown.  

Like the Hot Wheels Unleashed games, many vehicles are reserved for DLC, with the season pass increasing the number of vehicles from 40 to 66 – the most extensive roster in a Monster Jam game yet. Whether you’re new to Monster Jam or a longtime fan, Showdown’s extensive vehicle roster provides plenty of fan service. It’s a shame that a third of the vehicle list is locked behind DLC, but some will be released for free. 

While you can apply over 140 liveries, sadly, there is no livery editor for creating custom designs. This is likely due to licensing issues, but a livery editor will hopefully be added in a sequel if it gets greenlit. Customisation is limited to changing banners and icons displayed on your player profile, but the basic options leave much to be desired. While you can level up your truck to earn more points when performing specific stunts, you also can’t tune your truck or upgrade the components.      

Each truck is highly detailed, with realistic paint schemes, intricate chassis, and detachable panels when you inevitably slam into a wall or land on your roof after a poorly timed backflip. However, it’s a shame there’s no cockpit camera for a more immersive viewpoint after the Steel Titans games had this option.

You start with three trucks in your garage, but more are unlocked by completing challenges and secondary objectives. There’s a tangible sense of progression as everything you do in Showdown earns you XP towards unlocking new trucks and liveries, from achieving points targets to performing specific stunts.

As you’d expect, monster trucks handle differently than cars, so there’s a learning curve if you’re used to the grippy handling in games like Forza, Gran Turismo, and F1. Combined with their colossal amounts of power and torque, these top-heavy machines are easy to flip over if you approach a corner too fast or land a jump at the wrong angle. They also slide around corners effortlessly, but this can be balanced with dual steering.  

Mastering the independent rear-wheel steering controlled with the right stick is essential for navigating tight turns and adjusting drift angles. It adds an extra nuance to the driving and takes time to adjust, but sliding these enormous chunks of metal around corners is hugely satisfying when you master it. The trucks have a great sense of mass, and you can feel the suspension as you lean around corners and land tricky jumps – it’s a vast improvement over the stiff physics in the Steel Titans games.    

Since Monster Jam is popular with children, Milestone has added an array of driving assists to make Showdown accessible for younger players. For example, dual steering can be turned off, and the drift assist makes you less likely to spin out. 

Showdown captures the feeling of driving a 1,500-hp monster truck, but it’s not a simulation. Arcade sensibilities make it fun and approachable for all ages. Each truck is fitted with nitro for a handy speed boost to blast past opponents. You can also adjust your truck’s position in mid-air if you need to correct a landing or pull off a perfect backflip. It’s not realistic, but it’s a lot of fun and echoes the over-the-top spirit of the sport. 

Choose Your Own Path of Destruction 

With ten game modes, Showdown’s Tour mode (the central career mode) offers plenty of variety. A non-linear structure lets you choose your path and focus on your favourite events, split into three categories: Stunt, Short, and Racing.

Replicating the actual competition, Freestyle events see you perform high-octane stunts within a time limit inside stadiums, from wheelies, drifts, and smashing objects to crowd-pleasing backflips. With a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater-style scoring system, chaining combos and chasing the highest score is compelling. Meanwhile, Head-to-head events have you race against a rival truck on short circuits across multiple rounds. 

A lively commentator who reacts to your actions adds to the atmosphere, but the dialogue repeats far too often. You’ll sometimes hear the annoying announcer shout the same line several times in one event. Thankfully, you can save your ears and turn them off. 

Outside the official stadiums, a traditional racing mode lets you battle it out with seven trucks on fictional off-road courses set in Death Valley, Colorado, and Alaska. With circuits featuring mixed surfaces, multiple pathways, and destructible environments, the chaotic racing reminds us of Sony’s MotorStorm series, which has been dormant for over a decade. It’s a refreshing change of pace from the stadium stunt shows. 

Additional events add new spins to the standard game modes. Figure-of-eight races, for example, feature dangerous crossroads, challenging you to avoid passing trucks and pileups. Horde races are another highlight. Here, everyone is split into two teams, with the frantic race ending either when all players in a team have been overtaken or the time expires.  

Earning enough tokens in each category unlocks bonus Showdown events. These are effectively one-on-one boss battles where you have to beat your opponent and get the high score by executing stunts and smashing billboards. Win the event, and you’ll add their truck to your collection.  

With 130 events to complete and lots to unlock, the campaign is surprisingly lengthy, though we wish there was an option to set up custom single-player events outside the Showdown Tour. While new game modes are introduced gradually to keep the campaign fresh, the limited number of locations let it down. As a result, the campaign gets repetitive as you revisit the same locations and circuits. A tropical environment set in Hawaii will be added post-launch but as a paid expansion.  

Showdown marks Milestone’s first game powered by Unreal Engine 5, and the results are impressive. Switching to the new engine provides a level of polish that previous Monster Jam games have lacked, with superb lighting, reflections, and weather effects. Elsewhere, the bright menus and brash presentation are reminiscent of Codemasters’ DIRT games. 

Online, Showdown supports multiplayer for up to eight players. There’s also an online-exclusive, capture-the-flag-style Treasure Hunting mode where teams of players must locate and hold onto treasure pieces. It sounds fun, but we couldn’t test the online multiplayer as there were no active players at the time of writing. However, finding online matches should be easy as Showdown supports crossplay multiplayer on all systems, excluding the Switch. Split-screen multiplayer is also welcome – something that’s increasingly rare in modern racing games. 

Overall, Showdown successfully captures the thrill and spectacle of Monster Jam. It’s easy for younger players to pick and play yet challenging for experienced players to master. There aren’t enough locations at launch, but the lengthy campaign and rich variety of game modes will keep players engaged. Pulling off crazy stunts in the Freestyle events is satisfying, and the MotorStorm-style circuit races deliver a sense of over-the-top fun and silliness that modern racers have lacked.