TrackMania Canyon Available As Closed Beta
- TrackMania builds on popularity of first installment
- Also beginning of new networked gaming system for PCs – ManiaPlanet
- Closed beta of ShootMania coming soon, too
Ubisoft has announced that TrackMania Canyon, the sequel to TrackMania, will be available as a closed beta beginning in July.
The TrackManiaCanyon closed beta also will mark the beginning of ManiaPlanet, a new networked gaming system for PCs that is said to provide easy-to-use tools for community-based game creation and participation.
After Nadeo released TrackMania in 2003, is attracted more than nine million players who in turn created hundreds of thousands of customised racetracks, thousands of videos, and hundreds of 3D car models.
Nadeo has improved upon that foundation with TrackMania Canyon, delivering what it believes to be advances in graphic quality, racing realism and network infrastructure while maintaining the intuitive gameplay, racing modes and familiar community tools that make the TrackMania series what it is for fans of the genre.
TrackMania Canyon will be the first game released on ManiaPlanet, a system offering customers a networked gaming experience. It includes the creative instruments already familiar to the TrackMania community – such as the map editor, the players’ creations explorer and the ranking and match-making systems – and extends them into other gaming genres, including the first-person shooter and role-playing games.
In addition to TrackMania Canyon, a closed beta of ShootMania, ManiaPlanet’s FPS, will be available in the coming months. QuestMania, an RPG, also will be available via closed beta at a later date. The result will be a single ManiaPlanet community where players are free to engage with any of the three games however they choose, whether by creating and communicating, organising and cooperating, competing, or playing for fun.
