MotoGP 22 is generally acknowledged to be a pretty hard game in terms of the handling and overall feel of the bikes. It’s very difficult to get used to it for sure, and get to the point where you’re lapping consistently on the MotoGP bikes especially.

But the AI level is another aspect of the difficulty to consider. The raw pace of the AI on this game isn’t that fast, but it’s so hard to control the bikes that the game is still very difficult overall.

For newer players who want to know what difficulty they should set for the AI, here’s a quick guide.

• Beginner Level – 30-40%
• Getting better but still falling off – 50-60%
• Getting more consistent and reasonable pace – 70%
• Fast and consistent – 80-100%
• Very best no assists players – 100%+

Basically, from my own testing, from 80% onwards is where the AI seem to get really hard to compete against.

Now let’s drill into the issue of AI difficulty in more detail to give a more precise overview.

Quick Guide To Find Your Correct Difficulty

To dig into this topic in more detail, I created my own custom Championship on the game and tested the different difficulty levels for each successive race.

To be more clear on my own skill level, I’ve not had the game long but have put in some serious hours of practice and have developed a decent level of consistency on the MotoGP bikes on most tracks. My race lap times are reasonable on most circuits, but still a couple of seconds off the very best players (still using most of the assists). My consistency varies track to track, but I don’t come off the bike nearly as much as when I first got the game, and on some tracks like Valencia, Rio Hondo, Mandalika, Qatar, I hardly come off at all now.

Here’s how I would sum up each AI level:

Below 30% AI Level – I basically don’t think it’s even worth using this AI level because they’re so slow they’ll just get in the way of any human players. It’s probably better to practice alone on Time Trial or do the in game Tutorials than race against this level of AI.

30 – 40% AI Level – Very slow AI pace, good for total beginners who are still learning the tracks and perhaps still use the full braking assist. Once you learn the track layouts and can lap somewhat competently and consistently, this AI level will be too easy for you. When I tested this level, I was about 5-6 seconds faster than the AI on a clean lap – way too slow unless you’re constantly coming off the bike.

50% AI Level – Still quite slow in terms of pace. If you have been practicing and improving in consistency like me, you’ll still be able to beat the AI riders by 3-4 seconds on practice/qualifying laps. But this can be a good level to set if you still come off the bike 2-3 times per race, but otherwise are quite consistent and set decent lap times. With this AI level, you can fall off but still be in the hunt for a top 5 finish if you recover well.

60% AI Level – The AI raw pace is starting to increase here, but even a moderately practiced beginner who’s still using assists can still lap a couple of seconds faster than the AI on this level when they put a good lap together. I won at Mugello at a canter on this difficulty – about 2 seconds per lap faster than the AI and I’m still not very fast compared to the best players. If you come off once, you can maybe still recover to get a win or podium on this level.

70% AI Level – Again this the AI level still isn’t very fast in raw terms and you can still easily beat them in practice and qualifying sessions by 1-2 seconds if you’ve developed a half decent level of pace/consistency and have learned the circuits well. But the races are starting to get more unforgiving and it’s harder to recover if you fall off. I easily qualified pole at Catalunya on 70% AI, but fell off the bike on lap 1 and could only recover to 18th in a 6 lap race.

80% AI Level – This is when I found the difficulty level really stepped up, with the AI noticeably faster. From beating them easily on 70%, I was now qualifying near the back at 80%. And if you fall off the bike even once, you’re going to be stone dead last and not recover unless you’re a top level player with excellent pace. This was the cut off level for me where it became too hard. You need to be fast and basically never fall off to compete at this level.

90% AI level and above – To go any further above 80%, you’d have to be an insanely good player on this game – fast and also consistent, basically never making any mistakes. And 100% + level is for the very best no assists players who are super smooth and fast and never fall off the bike. I don’t know how, but some players do reach this level on MotoGP 22 (see this guy who races with no assists and finds even the Maximum 120% AI level too easy).

My Own Level – Right now, for me, I’m sticking at 70% level, having put some serious hours of practice in to get better, but still not a top level player. In terms of raw AI pace, it’s a little on the easy side on some tracks, but it gives me some breathing room if I fall off the bike once, to recover. 75% is still a little too hard for me right now as if I fall off, I’m stone dead last and can’t recover.

Manually Finding Your Optimum AI Level

The above section is meant to provide a rough guide for where to start with your AI difficulty. If you want to more precisely fine tune the setting for yourself, here’s a process for doing this.

Step #1 – Set yourself up a custom race or mini Championship season of your favourite tracks, or the ones you find the easiest. Under Race Settings, pick an AI level that you think roughly matches your skill level based on the criteria above.

Step #2 – Run through the practice sessions, be sure to set at least some clean laps, and compare your times both to your direct team mate(s) on the same bike. Where do you sit in relation to them? If you’re seconds faster, you need a higher AI level. if you’re seconds slower, you need to bring the AI level down. If you’re about the same pace as your team mate, you’ve got the AI level about right.

Step #3 – Adjust the AI level as needed between races. As a general rule, each 1% increase/decrease in AI Difficulty equates to 0.1 second in lap time, so increasing/decreasing the AI level by 10 clicks improves/reduces AI pace by  around 1 second.  Unfortunately, you can’t change AI difficulty during a race weekend, but you can adjust it between race events. Either move through the races and keep adjusting until your find a good level, or restart another Custom race/championship if you want.

When setting the AI level though, most players will need to also take into account how often they come off the bike (very common with the difficult handling of MotoGP 22). Every time you do this, it adds several seconds at least to your race time if you have the Bike Recovery set to disabled (respawns you on the bike), so you may need an AI level slightly slower than your potential outright pace if you also fall off quite often and lose time recovering the bike.

How To Race Against The AI

The AI on this game do have some strange characteristics. Basically, from what I’ve seen so far, they just stick to the racing line/trajectory they’re on and will not shift from that, regardless of anything you do. They won’t move out of the way to avoid collisions with you; they just do their own thing and so it’s up to you to avoid collisions with them.

Bumping into other riders, especially when you’re also leaning the bike, is a recipe for falling off and losing lap time, so you have to find ways to overtake other riders without colliding with them.

Basically, this means you have to take a different line from an AI rider into a corner to get past them – either a very wide line or a very narrow line. The straight line speed of the AI seems to remain consistent across AI levels; it’s the cornering speed that varies depending on the difficulty you set.

Therefore the best way to overtake an AI bike is to wait for a wider/more open corner and either “undercut” or “overcut” them on corner entry – either go in very shallow carrying a bit more speed and cut ahead of them, or take a wider line and get them on acceleration on corner exit.

If there’s a whole bunch of AI bikes clustered together, again it’s best not to play “dodgems” and just try and barge past them all at once. On slower AI levels, wait for a wide corner entry and find an inside/outside line to avoid them all and accelerate past them on exit.

The raw pace of the AI is actually not particularly hard on this game, but the bike handling is VERY difficult, so MotoGP 22 is still overall considered one of the harder games in the franchise.

Nevertheless, if you can get comfortable and consistent with the handling, it’s possible to race and win quite easily against even harder level AI. See this YouTuber for an example of someone who actually finds the AI a bit too easy on this game, and easily wins a lot of races even starting from the back against the hardest level AI.