Back in September, Zwift announced plans to release “gamified” steering-required races on Repack Rush and Crit City. Late last week they made good on the promise, adding the first test events to the calendar.
The Gamified Race Experience
What are the new races like? Well, I can tell you this: it’s not the Zwift racing you’re used to. These events are short, hectic, and… gamified! Watch Nathan Guerra take on a gamified Crit City race and get rolled at the line by his wife:
About the Courses
The two race courses use new gamification elements:
- Blue Boost Pads: increase your speed by 10kph
- Red Hazard Pads: decrease your speed by 15%
- Green Time Deductions: remove 0.2 seconds from your overall time (available on Repack Rush only)
- Boost Powerup: increases your speed by 10kph with each charge, and can be used twice per charge (available in Crit City only)
The gamified Crit City course covers The Bell Lap route, but with some changes. First, you get the new “Boost Power Up”, at the lap banner, which gives you two boosts. Make sure you use both each lap, or it won’t refresh at the lap banner!
Crit City also includes blue boost pads (which speed you up) and red hazard pads (which slow you down). Some of the pads move back and forth, and some swap from red to blue and back again!
Lastly, you can use the entire road (not just your lane) in the newly gamified Crit City, so you can really cut corners when steering.
Repack Rush is a very short (2.8km) route that was launched as a steering test route back in June 2023 when Zwift released their Play Controllers. Like the gamified Crit City course it includes boost pads and hazards… but Repack Rush also includes time bonuses.
This is the first time we’ve been able to do multiplayer events on Repack. They’ll be short, hectic races! But the winner isn’t necessarily the rider who crosses the line first. The game will calculate your time deductions, then display a leaderboard of final results when you cross the line!
Steering Required
You must have a steering device paired to Zwift to participate in these events. The list of compatible devices includes:
- Zwift Play
- Elite Sterzo Smart
- Elite Rizer
- Wahoo KICKR Bikes
- Jetblack Smart Turn Block
Schedule of Events
Although the event description says they’ll be available through December 10, Zwift’s calendar currently shows them scheduled through the end of the year. Events are on the calendar three times daily apart from Mondays.
Daily event times:
- 8:30am UTC/3:30am EST/12:30am PST
- 6:30pm UTC/1:30pm EST/10:30am PST
- 11:30pm UTC/6:30pm EST/3:30pm PST
Route rotation:
- Tuesdays: Crit City
- Wednesdays: Repack Rush
- Thursdays: Crit City
- Fridays: Repack Rush
- Saturdays: Crit City
- Sundays: Repack Rush
See all upcoming gamified events at zwift.com/events/tag/steeringonly
Feedback Wanted
Zwift is holding these as test events so riders can share feedback on their experiences. To leave feedback, please head over to this forum post.
Looks like a lot of fun!
Will have to wait until Zwift enables steering on the Stages bike though. Plenty of buttons on the Stages bike to make that possible.
This is not my kind of thing. Too much gamification. Steering devices already are pretty much unfair in certain unmoderated group rides when these turn into kind of races (as it is often the case for irl group rides in fact), i.e. those with steering devices trying by all means to drop you have an unfair advantage which acts like an unlimited burrito power up. Gets pretty much annoying. This is the kind of thing that drives me away from these events.
I love my Zwift Play in group rides, my finger hovers above the “Z” button the entire time, I hit it every time I get passed, or if I pass a rider. Other than that, they just take up space on my bars
These are 4 to 7 minute efforts. At each time slot they should calendar 4 of these races (maybe 10-15 minutes apart), so riders can do several races in a row if they want (like the tiny series). I think that would generate more participation and also give riders a chance to get a decent workout.
Mario Kart comes to Zwift … it will be not a “race of truth” decided by W/Kg … so it should be a better chance for low-end-riders per Cat. to reach good results by smart riding/steering and bit of a luck factor. It’s all about fun, don’t take it too seriously.
What a nightmare.
At least it’s a bit different, but I’d like to see some wilder event types, as it’s still fundamentally a race. One of the things you have in some racing games are open-world “point to point” races where the start and end are defined, but the route is left up to the racers, might be a bit hard in zwift as a lot of the routes are pretty distinct and probably have too significant time gaps to add variation. But you could maybe do something like start at the desert pens and you have to get to the jungle arch,… Read more »
Single-button instant bike/kit loadout changes (should already be a thing with the Play)
And some TF2 stuff. And camping, somehow.
RGT implemented steering but to allow as many users to use it as possible they implemented it in the phone app and also allowed steering via A and D buttons on the keyboard. I would use the laptop keyboard but others got inexpensive 4-button configurable bluetooth keyboards and programmed the keys to A and D. It’s too bad Zwift is requiring a purchase of expensive hardware to access steering. Users with only curiosity about these events are unlikely to make the commitment just to try it, perhaps only once.