Onrush Preview - Pretty entertaining

Codemasters comes this year with a brand new arcade racer under the name Onrush. The game does not take too long, because the release is on June 5. Particularly, because we have not heard much about this game yet. Behind the game lies the development team that was at the helm of MotorStorm and Driveclub. We are therefore very curious about Onrush and fortunately we were able to try both the single and multiplayer and how did that work? You can read that in this preview.

Goals are more important than being the first to finish

What you should know first about Onrush is that it is not a traditional racing game and certainly not a spiritual successor to MotorStorm. With Onrush, it is not so important at all when it comes to the finish. It matters more that you achieve the objectives with your team, if you want to win the victory. You can do this in four modes, each of which has a different purpose.

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So you have Overdrive, where it is important to boost as much as possible and thus increase the number of points of your team. With Switch you have three lives and it's all about which team will last the longest. Furthermore, you have Lockdown, where you have to capture as many mobile zones as possible, the team with the most vehicles in a zone scores the points. Finally, there is Countdown, where you are supposed to go through mobile checkpoints to earn time, the team that loses the fastest time then.

As you can see, these are modes that you can not find in a regular racing game. You can also call Onrush as much a racing game as you would with Rocket League. This way Onrush even has a 'Stampede' feature, which ensures that you never get too far from your team. As soon as you lie behind the group, accidentally or repeatedly die, Stampede brings you back in the middle of the action as a kind of teleporting function. So the action remains concentrated around the group and you never have the idea that it is 'empty' around you.

Graphically not very special, but a unique style

We did not find Onrush a very nice game, although we clearly see that the game has its own graphic style. The multi-route tracks look fairly detailed, but are not very high in terms of views or special effects. It is true that you especially go very fast in Onrush and you do not necessarily pay much attention to your environment. We may also play a reasonably early build, so anything can happen in this area.

Onrush supports for the PS4 Pro a resolution of 4K with HDR, or a higher frames per second mode. So you can choose for yourself which priority you have, HDR works with both modes. If you opt for a more stable frame rate, you can enjoy the game in 60 frames per second. Prefer a higher resolution? Then 4K is the other option, but the framerate is at 30 frames per second. So it is just what you prefer.

Pretty entertaining

Onrush is a somewhat different racer than we had thought in the beginning, but that is not the only thing that could surprise us. The game is also particularly entertaining to play. The chaos, the boosting and the focus on objectives rather than simply go very fast, it is a recipe that damn well is well-balanced and comes into its own in this game.

Multiplayer battles are possible with teams of 6 versus 6, but we do wonder to what extent this remains a somewhat personal experience. After all, it is not easy to drum up five friends and it is not possible to play for example 3 versus 3. Although we do not exclude that this will be added in the future. Perhaps this depends a bit on the online population and what the community would like to see later.

In total, the game offers 12 tracks, of which we have already been able to play four. We noticed that we mainly enjoyed a lot of tracks that are more compact and therefore cause more chaos, the somewhat broader tracks are slower in terms of action. Furthermore, the compact tracks lend themselves better in the future for, for example, 3 versus 3 races, if one wants to add this.

As far as the single player is concerned, you do not have to get bored because there is enough content. The only question is whether the game remains fun for as long as with friends, the game should see it mainly from the multiplayer. Nevertheless, the AI was - as far as we could see - very well put together, but it is always more fun to beat a friend off the track in a game than a CPU.

Preliminary Conclusion

The game has potential and the fun factor is very high, which gives it a good chance of success. In the end, it mostly depends on how the rest of the tracks are and whether people actually listen to the community for further content and possibly new modes. Onrush can be the type of game that, like Rocket League, is eventually formed by the community as the ultimate arcade racer. We are very curious about the final release and the rest of the tracks. Keep an eye on Onrush!

Thanks for reading.