TrackMania Nations Forever

TrackMania Nations Forever (original Japanese title: トラックマニア・ネイションズ・フォーエバー, Hepburn: torakku mania neishonzu fōebā) is a racing video game developed by Nadeo and published by Focus Entertainment primarily for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Players explore the incredible open world of the stadium environment, where they can choose to either play the official story-driven campaign, or go online and choose one of the hundreds of millions maps built by other members of the community.
Development of TrackMania Nations Forever lasted three years, commencing immediately after the release of the previous game in the TrackMania franchise: TrackMania Original. Led by the Nadeo CEO - Hylis, the development team set their goal as "creating something memorable", which would later prove successful. The designers of the stadium environment drew inspiration from famous stadiums worldwide, ranging from the Etihad Stadium of England or the King Fahd Stadium of Saudi Arabia, to the Subotica City Stadium of Serbia.
TrackMania Nations Forever received widespread acclaim and won numerous accolades. Critics praised its graphics, gameplay, world design, and attention to detail, though some criticized its technical performance. It is the most downloaded Nadeo game, and is one of the most downloaded and played games ever.
TrackMania Nations Forever is considered to be one of the best video games of all time. Numerous developers cited it as their inspiration, and it is a popular point of comparison among racing games.
==Gameplay==
TrackMania Nations Forever is a racing game where players can have various goals dependent on their selected game mode. Be the fastest in time attack, perform the greatest move in stunts, find out who's the murderer in RPG, or try not losing your sanity in backwards, TrackMania has it all, and even more. The main vehicle of the game - the StadiumCar, - is a four-wheeled beast, capable of achieving unreal speeds in mere seconds. Players will have to harness the StadiumCar power wisely to avoid falling behind.
TrackMania Nations Forever includes some pre-constructed tracksOftentimes referred to as the Nadeo campaign. that players can race on to unlock the story mode, with some of the content being locked behind its full completionSome of the map editor blocks are inaccessible to prevent spoilers.. There is also the multiplayer mode in the game, allowing you to either play with your friends locally or online. According to 2024 estimates, there are 2949 currently active servers in TMNF, most of which have at least 20 people actively playing. The majority of the active TrackMania players are also map builders, which contributes to over 100 million available maps for the game on the TrackMania Exchange. Each of those maps has a style of its own, and the community has no shortage of map styles available for choice. TrackMania Nations Forever also features dozens of game modes, where anybody can find something to toy with to their heart's content.
Besides racing, players can create maps of their own using the very complex built-in map editor, design car liveries using the impressive car painter, and edit their replays into live action movies using the early pre-alpha prototype of the MediaTracker.
==Plot==
The player takes control of the unnamed protagonist, whose goal is to get revenge for what happened to their family. The official campaign features 6 worlds, most of which are defined by their colour in the selection menu.
Those worlds include:
# White Tundra
# Green Grass
# Blue Oceans
# Yellow Desert
# Red Magma
# Black Void
After coming a long way full of challenges, the protagonist completes their goal upon beating E05-Endurance.
==Reception==
TrackMania Nations Forever received universal acclaim, according to the review aggregator Metacritic, on whose website it is one of the highest-rated games. Several critics called the game a timeless masterpiece.
A revolutionary racing game like this received immense amounts of praise. Leslie Nielsen said the game is "Something new, something revolutionary. It completely breaks all the rules set by any other racing game from its time. Not only is it a timeless masterpiece, but it completely redefines racing as an activity overallLeslie Nielsen said this on the premiere of his movie "Superhero Movie".."
=== Downloads ===
TrackMania Nations Forever broke download records on multiple occasions in multiple years, beating games such as Age Of Empires II: The Return of Villager, FlatOut and Fallout 2. At multiple points, especially when the game was released, the official website was inaccessible due to high traffic. This however, would start to be less and less of a problem, as the game unfortunately started having its downfall during 2015, but still lasting over 7 years.
=== Awards ===
After the release of the game, it was immediately nominated for multiple awards including (but not limited to):
* IGN Game of the Year Award
* Nadeo Game Award
* Game Award
* Best Multiplayer Game Award
* RedBull Racing Game Awards
* Michelin Tires Game Awards
Out of the aforementioned rewards, TrackMania Nations Forever managed to win the IGN Game of the Year Award, Nadeo Game Award and the Michelin Tires Game Awards.
It would continue to win multiple awards over the years gaining over 300 total nominations, and over 260 awards for these nominations. The last time TrackMania Nations Forever won an award was in 2017, winning the Royal British Academy Game of the Month award.
==References==