TrackMania Nations Forever

8th April 2008

TrackMania Nations Forever, the highly awaited sequel to TrackMania Nations, the free downloadable racing game launched two years ago, will be available as a free download from April 16th 2008.

TrackMania Nations has been installed more than 30 million times by players worldwide, becoming a video game phenomenon. The new version, TrackMania Nations Forever, features:

• 65 brand new, progressively difficult tracks

• A new ‘Forever’ version of the Stadium environment

• Engaging multiplayer modes

• A solid solo mode

• A brand new track editor

• Innovative communications between competing racers via PC

Florent Castelnerac, Director of Nadeo studio, explains:

“The PC is the premiere gaming platform when it comes to the number of casual and expert players. To satisfy this wide range of players, we designed the game for everyone instead of trying to focus on the average gamer. We have put a lot of effort into developing the competitive spirit between players in order to present a game adapted to big e-sports competitions, while remaining captivating and accessible to players who have less gaming experience.

Even if you play Nations Forever alone, you can still be ranked in the world, your country, your city or even in your list of friends that you can create by inviting friends to join in a similar way to Facebook or MySpace. It is up to each player to set his/her goals - become one of the best players in the world or just impress friends. These ladders are adapted to everyone and they add ten times more interest to solo or multiplayer modes. Always searching for new ways to add interest and unite an even larger number of players, we explored the possibilities the PC offers as a universal communication platform: for example, a system that allows you to challenge your friends by mail or Messenger. Since the game is free, fun and works on most computers, there is a big chance that many people that you know will play it.

Finally, in terms of creativity, the PC is the only game platform that allows players to easily create additional game content. TrackMania Nations Forever comes with powerful creative tools such as the track editor. We increased creative possibilities with richer, more complete editors while making creation more accessible to a larger number of players with a simplified track editor. Tomorrow, we will see exceptional creations from the four corners of the world that players can exchange freely and easily. It's a tremendous motivation for the entire development team.”

Players of TrackMania Nations Forever will join the extensive TrackMania online community, encompassing players from the free version and the forthcoming retail version, TrackMania United Forever (releasing 23rd May 2008). Nations Forever and United Forever players will be able to compete on the same servers, challenging for the best times on all of the compatible Stadium tracks.

TrackMania Nations Forever will be available for free download from April 16th.

- Download the TrackMania Nations Forever Trailer (90 MB)

http://www.focus-files.com/videos/tmnf/trailer_tmn_forever_en.rar

- Download the press kit (new images, logos & photos) (10 MB)

http://www.trackmania-lejeu.com/files/press_kit_tmnf.rar

- Watch the trailer (streaming)

http://www.tm-united.com/trailers/tmnf/

- TrackMania Web site

http://www.trackmania.com

Fast facts:

Publisher: Ascaron Entertainment / Focus Home Interactive

Web: www.Ascaron.com

Developer: Nadeo

Release date: April 16th

Price: FREE

PEGI: TBC

Format: PC

Genre: Racing

About Ascaron Entertainment

From Day One in 1989 Ascaron Entertainment has become one of the leading European “boutique” developers and Publishers of games for the PC, with many successful titles including Patrician, Port Royale, DarkStar One and SACRED.

Ascaron maintains development studios in Berlin, Gutersloh and Aachen (Germany), as well as an international department in Birmingham (UK). Ascaron currently markets its products in more than 40 countries and over 15 languages.

Ascaron Entertainment (UK) is an independent office and is highly regarded on a domestic and global scale. With a professional reputation, full-service product management, and a wealth of experience in the games industry, the UK operation manages the international releases of Ascaron's entire catalogue, whilst also providing a bespoke publishing, sales, PR and marketing function to selected affiliate label partners. Ascaron Entertainment (UK) continues to be responsible for successfully launching titles into the UK market from developers and publishers worldwide. Titles include the popular UFO, Panzers, Cossacks and Blitzkrieg series of games, as well as critically acclaimed hits such as Call of Juarez, Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle and TrackMania United.

About Focus Home Interactive

Founded in 1996, Focus Home Interactive is a French publishing and distribution company based near Paris, France. Known for the diversity, quality and originality of its catalogue, Focus now publishes and distributes many of its titles throughout Europe and also world-wide in both boxed retail and digital distribution formats. The last five years have been very successful for Focus in France, with many of its PC licenses becoming top-sellers. Focus has also published several original titles, including the adventure game Runaway, the renowned Cycling Manager and the much-loved TrackMania. The coming months will be exciting and full of surprises with the release of high-quality games such as Blood Bowl, TrackMania DS, Runaway: A Twist of Fate, Sherlock Holmes and sport games dedicated to major events such as the America’s Cup or the Tour de France.

http://www.focus-home.com

For further press information please contact:

Stephen Denton / Matt King

Media Safari

T: +44 (0)1225 731388

E: stephend@mediasafari.co.uk