TrackMania

This article is about the video game series. For the first game in the series, seeTrackMania (2003 video game).For the latest game, seeTrackmania (2020 video game).

Trackmania
Genre(s)	Racing
Developer(s)	Ubisoft Nadeo Firebrand Games
Publisher(s)	Digital Jesters Focus Entertainment Enlight Software Ubisoft
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows Nintendo DS Wii PlayStation 4 Xbox One Xbox Series X and Series S PlayStation 5
First release	TrackMania 2003
Latest release	TrackMania 2020
Spin-offs	ShootMania Storm

New logo for the remake ofTrackmania Nations,Trackmania(2020)

TrackManiais a series ofracing gamesforMicrosoft Windows,PlayStation 4,PlayStation 5,Xbox One,Xbox Series X and Series S,Nintendo DS,andWiideveloped byUbisoft NadeoandFirebrand Games.Instead of following the usual trend of choosing a set car and track to play the game, inTrackManiathe players can create their own tracks using a "building block" process similar to games that existed before the first TrackMania game, such as the 1984 gameExcitebike,the 1985 gameRacing Destruction Set,and the 1990 gameStunts.

TrackManiagames typically have atime trialformat, with medals awarded for beating set times in single-player mode, as well as the ability to submit times to various online rankings. Players may choose torespawn(retire) at any time, for example if they land upside down, leave the track or get off to a poor start. Multiplayer races operate as concurrent time trials; players' cars are visible on the same track at the same time, butcannot physically interact with one another.

Games

Release timeline

2003	TrackMania
2004	TrackMania: Power Up!
2005	TrackMania Sunrise
	TrackMania Original
	TrackMania Sunrise eXtreme
2006	TrackMania Nations ESWC
	TrackMania United
2007
2008	TrackMania United Forever
	TrackMania Nations Forever
	TrackMania DS
2009
2010	TrackMania: Build to Race
	TrackMania Turbo
2011	TrackMania²: Canyon
2012
2013	TrackMania²: Stadium
	ShootMania Storm
	TrackMania²: Valley
2014
2015
2016	TrackMania Turbo
2017	TrackMania²: Lagoon
2018
2019
2020	Trackmania

TrackMania (2003)

Main article:TrackMania (2003 video game)

TrackMania Sunrise

Main article:TrackMania Sunrise

TrackMania Nations (Electronic Sports World Cup)

TrackMania Nations ESWC
Developer(s)	Nadeo
Publisher(s)	Focus Home Interactive Deep Silver
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	January 27, 2006
Genre(s)	Racing
Mode(s)	Single-player,multiplayer

On January 27, 2006, Nadeo releasedTrackMania Nations,also calledTrackMania Nations ESWCpartly as a promotion for theElectronic Sports World Cup,and also forTrackManiaitself. This free, stand-alone game had one new environment, "Stadium", and many of theSunriseedition features, including the advertisement panels, which show ads from sponsors streamed from the internet. The game contains 100 single player tracks, the earlier ones relatively simple in both design and gameplay, but it is largely pitched as an online game. One of the main attractions is the leader board, where players compete for the best times and points. The top five players can be seen on the game's homepage.Nationsquickly became popular with almost 1 million registered online players within weeks of its launch), largely due to the wide availability of the freeware game.

TrackMania United

TrackMania United
Developer(s)	Nadeo
Publisher(s)	FRA:Focus Home Interactive UK:Deep Silver US:Enlight
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	November 17, 2006 (online),France RU:December 22, 2006 GER:February 23, 2007 EU:March 9, 2007 WW:March 23, 2007 NA:June 11, 2007
Genre(s)	Racing,puzzle
Mode(s)	Single-player,multiplayer

On June 30, 2006,TrackMania Unitedwas announced, a version that amalgamated all previousTrackManiaeditions into a single game that includes all the environments from the earlier games, and subsequently future installments of the series.TrackMania Unitedfeatures a peer-to-peer networking system allowing players to share custom content more easily, and a unified ranking system. The updated graphics engine includes ashadow mappingacceleration system, which is used in the most recentStadiumversion. The new engine allows for more realistic shadows on high end systems while theStadiumenvironment has double the number of blocks featured in the free version, including dirt paths, water, and indoor sections.

Focus announced on November 9, 2006, that 10,000 copies ofTrackMania Unitedcould be bought and pre-loaded online then activated from November 16, 2006 onwards. The game became available in retail outlets in France, Canada, Australia, Belgium, the French-speaking part of Switzerland and Russia later in 2006, then on February 23, 2007 in Germany, then on March 9, 2007 and later in other regions.

The game is available in the UK and was made available in the US via download for $49.99 on March 23, 2007 and $39.99 on April 17, 2007.As of September 7, 2007, the game is available for $29.95.It was made available for pre-order and pre-load onSteamon June 7, 2007 and unlocked on June 14, 2007.

Players who previously purchasedTrackManiaorTrackMania: Sunrisecan earn a daily copper bonus inTrackMania Unitedby registering their product keys through the game.

Trackmania United Foreveris an updated version ofTrackmania Unitedfeaturing seven environments and an all-new mediatracker. It was published by Focus Home Interactive and developed by Ubisoft Nadeo and has a similar layout toTrackmania Nations Forever.Four main modes are available: "Race", "Stunt", "Platform", and "Puzzle" as well as all the tracks fromTrackmania Nations.

TrackMania United Forever & Nations Forever

On October 7, 2007, Ubisoft Nadeo announced that they were working on updated versions ofTrackMania UnitedandTrackMania Nations.Both new versions haveForeveradded to their name, and are network compatible.TrackMania Nations Foreverincludes the new stadium blocks and physics system introduced inTrackMania United,which allowTrackMania United ForeverandTrackMania Nations Foreverplayers to compete on the same (Stadium) servers.

Nadeo has stated that because they want the game to have a long lifespan, they are working on the engine and user interface rather than adding new content.TrackMania United Forever,for instance, no longer requires the CD to be in the drive due to different copy protection and anti-cheat systems. They also warn players that some features may not be the final versions.

TrackMania United Foreverwas released on April 15, 2008,with thefree-to-playvariantTrackMania Nations Foreverreleased the following day.

As of 9 December 2010, following the closure of the company used for providing in-game advertising,Nadeo introduced the "FreeZone" system to the game.This meant that Nations Forever players could only play on specific FreeZone servers or normal servers that they manually added to their in-game favourites list.Additionally, Nations Forever players were forced to spectate every one in five races.These changes were made as an incentive for players to upgrade to the paidTrackMania United Foreveras Nadeo could no longer make money from in-game advertising.

There were also plans to add additional environments Toy and Moon, but they were scrapped.

TrackMania DS

Main article:TrackMania DS

TrackMania Turbo(DS)

Main article:TrackMania Turbo (2010 video game)

TrackMania: Build to Race

On June 30, 2009, aTrackManiagame for theWii,titledTrackMania Wiiwas announced by jeuxvideo in an interview with one of the developers. The game features all the environments fromTrackMania Unitedapart from "Bay", due to the complexity of its scenery. The game was supposed to be released in North America under the titleTrackMania: Build to Raceon July 20, 2010 but on July 19, 2010, Michael Mota of Dreamcatcher Interactive, TrackMania Wii's publisher, told theExaminer"We made the announcement to the major retailers about the TrackMania delay; I’m not sure why that hasn’t been changed. The game has been delayed until December." The game eventually came out in North America on March 24, 2011. It has a more primitive online play system than the PC line of games and also uniquely features a special "F" class of tracks unlocked after a certain amount of medals are accrued.

An updated Wii release date on the Nintendo website for the UK version published byFocus Home Interactivehas been given as September 23, 2010.The game was released in Europe with theBuild to Racesubtitle removed.

TrackMania²

Main article:TrackMania 2

TrackMania²:Canyon

Like previousTrackManiagames, players can race on tracks while doing various stunts as well as build their own tracks. The game features a new environment, Canyon, as well as two modes, Race and Platform. Platform mode is featured in the free extension pack, TrackMania²:Platform.

Besides the new environment, the game also includes a split-screen mode, and a scripting language called "ManiaScript" which lets players add their own new features to the game.

TrackMania²:Stadium

TrackMania²:Stadiumwas announced on November 2, 2012. This environment was opened to the public with an open beta on February 27, 2013. The game features the classic Stadium environment that was introduced inTrackMania Nations.There have been some improvements to the graphics and some new added blocks in the editor. It uses ManiaPlanet's client and interface. The game was released on June 20, 2013.

TrackMania²:Valley

TrackMania²:Valleywas announced on November 2, 2012. This environment became available on ManiaPlanet on July 4, 2013.

TrackMania²:Lagoon

TrackMania²:Lagoonwas announced on May 9, 2017. This environment became available on ManiaPlanet on May 23, 2017. With this environment ported from TrackMania Turbo (2016), ManiaPlanet was given a large update called "ManiaPlanet 4".

TrackMania Turbo(2016)

Main article:TrackMania Turbo (2016 video game)

Announced at Ubisoft'sE3 2015conference,TrackMania Turbois a spin-off heavily inspired by 90s arcade racers. The game has been released in North America on March 22, 2016 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and on March 24, 2016 for Microsoft Windows.

Trackmania(2020)

Main article:Trackmania (2020 video game)

A remake ofTrackmania Nationswas announced forMicrosoft Windowson February 29, 2020, and was due to be released on May 5, 2020, but was delayed until July 1, 2020, due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.It was released on consoles and cloud platforms on May 15, 2023.

The base game isfree-to-play,with additional content available with a paidsubscription model,including an in-game track editor, online events and car customization.

Environments

The game series' featured environments are "Desert" (also known as "Speed" ), "Rally", "Snow" (also known as "Alpine" ), "Bay", "Coast", "Island", "Stadium", "Canyon", "Valley", and "Lagoon".

Reception

Aggregate review scores

Game	Metacritic
TrackMania (2003)	74/100
TrackMania Sunrise	82/100
TrackMania United	80/100
TrackMania United Forever	?/100
TrackMania Nations Forever	87/100
TrackMania DS	75/100
TrackMania Build to Race	74/100
TrackMania Turbo (DS)	77/100
TrackMania2Canyon	81/100
TrackMania2Stadium	77/100
TrackMania2Valley	79/100
TrackMania Turbo	78/100
TrackMania2Lagoon	77/100
Trackmania (2020)	74/100

Due to the success of theTrackManiaseries,Guinness World Recordsawarded the games six world records in theGuinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008.These include "Biggest Online Race", "Most Popular Online Racing Sim" and "Largest Content Base of Any Racing Game", with hundreds of thousands of user-created tracks and hundreds of unique cars available for download.

Copy protection system

See also:StarForce

The PC games in theTrackManiaseries used acopy protectionsystem called StarForce, which silently installed adriverwith all versions ofTrackMania Original,TrackMania Sunriseand the originalTrackMania Nations.Many sources falsely reported thatTrackMania Nationsupdated the StarForce drivers only if they were already installed, although versions released after May 28, 2007, installed the StarForce drivers on all computers even thoughTrackMania Nationsis freeware. The originalTrackMania Unitedfeatures StarForce restrictions built into the executable to check the software'skey,but it does not install the driver.

AlthoughValveoriginally included it in the system, on June 29, 2007, the company announced that the version ofTrackMania Uniteddistributed via their Steam digital distribution platform would no longer include StarForce.

TrackMania United ForeverandTrackMania Nations Foreverdo not include StarForce. If they are applied as upgrades to version ofTrackMania UnitedorTrackMania Nationswhich include StarForce, they attempt to remove it.

Spin-offs

Main article:ShootMania Storm

As the TrackMania games have grown in popularity, Nadeo started plans for two completely new games; namely, they began work onrole-playingandfirst-person shootergames. These were first announced in 2009 through TrackMania United Forever, where the player's loading screen was replaced with images announcing eitherShootmaniaorQuestmania.On 19 February 2012, Nadeo officially announcedShootmania.On 10 April 2013, Nadeo releasedShootmaniaon Maniaplanet. Questmania, however has not been released yet.

See also

• Racing Destruction Set
• Stunts,a similar game
• GripShift,a similar game
• Build 'n Race,a similar game
• ModNation Racers,a track-building game
• Hot Wheels Track Attack

External links

• TrackMania (2020)official website