During The Game Awards, MonsterVine got a hands-on preview of Annapurna’s upcoming racing game, Wheel World. The premise of the game is simple to understand. You play as a person who finds a beaten-up bike, and as the game progresses, players eventually unlock various upgrades that they can use to help them win more demanding races.
Wheel World was originally an adventure game
Interestingly, Wheel World was never meant to be a racing game. While speaking with co-art director Dann Beeson and tech lead Sam Loeschen, the two revealed that Wheel World was originally an adventure game. However, as development continued, the team realized that it would be more enjoyable if it was a racing game instead.
“It [Wheel World] was way more of an adventure game. We found ourselves getting nudged towards the races. Wandering around between races [was] fun, but we want it to be a breather and not stressful. We don’t want to worry about a stamina bar and get tired.” Loeschen said.
Once the team was two years into developing Wheel World, it realized it played similarly to 2008’s Burnout Paradise regarding avoiding ongoing traffic, finding shortcuts, and coasting off opponents. Like Paradise, Wheel World doesn’t take itself too seriously and is willing to have fun.
This can be seen by the goofy characters players encounter as they race to the top and even by the bike customizations, which consist of mannequin body parts. Beeson explained that they have unique customizations because “it’s just some weird people making a weird game.”
Beeson explained that the team behind Wheel World works from home and communicates via Discord. Often, the team would joke about adding something goofy to the game, and these jokes would quickly become a reality. Beeson said, “That’s how a lot of the weirder stuff got into Wheel World.”
When the team wasn’t joking, they wanted to ensure riding the bike felt smooth. To do this, they needed to add a physics system. Loeschen explained that creating the physics proved challenging because most of their programming background stemmed from rendering and graphics. On top of that, the games were made using the Unity Engine and didn’t have the exact physics system the team was looking for.
On top of that, the team wanted to ensure that the animations and bike physics blended together perfectly.
“If you think about how a bike actually works it’s confusing because what’s the hierarchy of it. Like, who’s actually moving it? It’s two entities that have to work as one. Striking that balance is pretty hard, but I think we hit it pretty well.” Beeson said.
Getting there did require some research, too. Loeschen mentioned that riding a bike in the GTA often feels like “a slow motorcycle.” To combat this, the team wanted to ensure that the bike’s weight affected how it moved.
Wheel World doesn’t have a release date yet, but it’s expected to drop in 2025 and be playable on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC.
