Monster Truck Championship arrived in 2020 with a specific claim attached: it is the first monster truck simulation. Not a racing game with big tires bolted on, but a sim built around the strange physics of machines that weigh several tons and land badly. Teyon developed it, Nacon published it, and it shipped across Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. That was six years ago, and the breadth of that platform list is still the first thing to weigh.
From Las Vegas to Orlando
The structure is a tour. You go from Las Vegas to Orlando, facing experienced drivers in drag races and freestyle competitions. The arenas are the setting, and there are 25 of them. The trucks are the subject, and there are 16, all customizable. The ladder is three leagues deep, and the point of climbing it is to become champion.
That is a clean frame, and Monster Truck Championship does not waste time decorating it. The modes are single player and multiplayer, local or online, and the camera sits in third person. The genres it claims are racing, simulator and sport, with action as the theme. The third-person view is the right call for a sim about mass and balance, because you need to see the truck’s whole body to read what it is doing.
Independent Front and Rear Wheel Management
Here is where Monster Truck Championship earns the word simulation. The game reproduces the demands of driving these trucks, and it names them: independent front and rear wheel management, mass transfer anticipation in bends, and predicting bounces after jumps.
Those three systems are the whole game. Steering the front axle and the rear axle separately is not a gimmick, it is the difference between a doughnut and a stall. Mass transfer in a bend means the truck leans before it turns, and you have to start the correction before the lean arrives. Predicting bounces after a jump means the landing is not the end of the trick, it is the setup for the next one.
A unique and challenging motor racing experience where local or online victory depends solely on your driving skills.
That line is the game’s own description, and it is also the fairest summary of what Monster Truck Championship gets right. Victory depends on driving, and driving here means managing weight.
Doughnuts, Wheelies and Bicycles
The trick list is short and technical: doughnuts, wheelies and bicycles. Before any of them, you tune the truck. That order matters. Monster Truck Championship puts setup ahead of spectacle, and the 16 customizable trucks exist so that the tuning has somewhere to go.
This is the part of the game that will divide people. A player who wants to grab a truck and immediately pull a wheelie will find the tuning screen in the way. A player who wants to understand why the truck will not hold a wheelie will find the answer there. The game is not hiding its depth. The 25 arenas give that depth room to breathe, because each one changes what the tuning is for.
Three Leagues to Win
The three-league climb is the spine of the single-player side, and it is a reasonable length for what the game is. You are not grinding a hundred events to reach the top. You are learning a handling model, then applying it against drivers who already know it. The drag races test launch and gearing. The freestyle competitions test the trick list and the landing.
The multiplayer side runs local or online, and it inherits the same rule: the driving decides it. That is a good rule for a sim and a hard rule for a party game. Monster Truck Championship is not a party game. It is a game about two axles, a center of mass, and a landing you have to plan for before you leave the ramp.
What the 7.7 Actually Says
Monster Truck Championship holds a 7.7 out of 10 on the IGDB critic aggregate, drawn from five outlets. Five reviews is a thin sample. The score reflects a small group of critics, not a broad consensus, and that distinction matters when you are deciding whether to spend money on it.
| Segment | Content |
|---|---|
| Setting | Las Vegas to Orlando |
| Arenas | 25 |
| Trucks | 16, customizable |
| Leagues | 3 |
| Modes | Single player, multiplayer (local or online) |
| Perspective | Third person |
| Core systems | Independent front and rear wheel management, mass transfer anticipation, bounce prediction |
| Tricks | Doughnuts, wheelies, bicycles |
| Platforms | Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch |
The table is the game. What it does not show is the cost of all that specificity.
The Verdict on Monster Truck Championship
Monster Truck Championship is a real sim wearing a loud sport. The loud part is the trucks and the arenas and the trick names. The real part is the axle management and the weight. Teyon built the second thing and let the first thing sell it, and that is the correct order.
The question is where the difficulty lands. Independent front and rear wheel management is a genuine skill ceiling, and the game states plainly that its victory condition rests on driving skill alone. The 16 trucks and 25 arenas are generous, and the tuning screen sits in front of every trick, which tells you what kind of player the game was built for. That is a design choice, not a flaw, but it is a choice with consequences.
Where it lands is as a specialist’s game. The drag races and freestyle events are the right two halves of the sport, and the three-league climb is the right length for a handling model this demanding. The multiplayer, local or online, is the real test, because the game ties the result to the driver and nothing else.
If you want a monster truck game that lets you mash a button and watch a truck flip, this is not it. If you want the first simulation of the discipline, with the axles split, the weight moving, and the landing already decided before you touch down, Monster Truck Championship is the one that exists, and it does the job.
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