Gameloft has been entertaining millions of mobile gamers with its Asphalt series for over a decade now. We’ve been driving luxurious cars through exotic locations in Asphalt games ever since the days of Jave ME phones in the early naughties and that experience never really got old. Each new installment always boasted more content and features, each one was so much prettier than its predecessor, and in the end, we ended up buying every last one of them. Well, it’s been more than a year since the last Asphalt game hit the Play Store and a lot has happened in the meantime. For starters, Gameloft recently went through a hostile takeover and is now almost fully owned by Vivendi after spending nearly 16 years as part of Ubisoft. It remains to be seen whether that change in ownership impacted the company’s creative process but the recently announced Asphalt: Xtreme seemingly suggests that.
Namely, the 11th installment in the long-lasting racing series is moving from actual asphalt tracks and is going to feature off-road action. As Gameloft puts it, “no road, no rules”. This is definitely a significant change for the series which never offered completely off-road tracks ever since originally debuting in 2004. Sure, Gameloft experimented with some wilder locations over the years but all of them still mostly featured actual roads. It’s worth noting that this title isn’t marketed as a spin-off so it’s possible that this setting will be a long-term direction for the popular series.
As for the game itself, not much is known about Asphalt: Xtreme at the moment. The latest teaser trailer which you can see below showcases a dusty track in Egypt and Gameloft announced 35 vehicles including SUVs and buggies but the only currently confirmed one is the Predator X-18 Intimidator. No other tracks have been specifically named though developers confirmed we’ll be visiting places like Thailand, Svalbard, and the Gobi desert. We also know that the game will feature a robust vehicle customization system but that’s pretty much all available info for the time being. No specific release date has yet been given by Gameloft though the Vivendi-owned studio recently stated that Asphalt: Extreme is hitting the Play Store “soon”.