Trials Evolution won't use Kinect

Trials Evolution won't be another Xbox 360 exclusive to adopt Kinect, Eurogamer can reveal.

"No," confirmed dev co-founder Antti Ilvessuo, "the Kinect is such a different controller, and we have spent so much time polishing and tuning the controls in Trials to the Xbox controller, that to use Kinect would really mean a totally different game."

Trials Evolution was revealed at E3. Eurogamer found out this afternoon that the game will release "sometime between the end of summer and the end of the year". "We're aiming for 2011," he said.

But Ilvessuo confirmed that Trials Evolution won't be a Summer of Arcade game - the campaign Microsoft uses to typically launch the best XBLA games (Trials HD included). Nevertheless, Trials Evolution could go on to lead Microsoft's October Game Feast bonanza.

The biggest new features of Trials Evolution are proper multiplayer and a track sharing hub. Ilvessuo fleshed out the former, confirming four-player co-op on the same Xbox 360 machine.

"We have two to four player multiplayer, both locally and online," he said. "Locally means four controllers on the same Xbox, on the same screen. Online means just that - online and in real-time, against up to three other live players on the same track."

"Everyone drives on the same screen and the same track, but on their own driving line. We have a few good tricks to keep the competition fierce and balanced."

The track sharing hub Ilvessuo said is being "kept under wraps", although "it's fair to say sharing tracks is going to be a whole lot easier". "You won't have to rely on using the Friends list to share content, you can just download your creations from the new Track Central portion of the game.

"Everything is very easy to find and nicely organised." If he doesn't say so himself.

The level editor, another integral part of the Trials experience, has undergone a "huge evolution". There's an "incredible amount of changes, according to Ilvessuo, and improvements" that apparently make "all kinds of things possible you could never do in Trials HD".

"Some of the mini-games the guys are creating right now are like nothing you've ever seen before!" he exclaimed.

"We just showed it to one of the guys who worked on the editor with the last game, Trials HD, and his eyes just bugged out," said Ilvessuo. "I had to steer him back to his seat."

It's "a bit early to get into too much detail" about the editor, he added, but feedback from Trials HD has been "paid attention to" and RedLynx thinks fans will be "thrilled".

Other new Trials Evolution improvements include "open environments with different lighting" and "curved driving lines".

But there will be minimal changes made to the core Trials gameplay. "Really it's mostly just been fine-tuning the gameplay and physics," said Ilvessuo. "We don't want to break the base gameplay model - it's one that really works."

A tactic that more than a million people, who in turn are responsible for more than 2 million Trials HD-related downloads, will be very happy about.

Trials HD launched in 2009 and scored a trail-blazing 9/10 on Eurogamer.