TrackMania 2 expands to Stadium and Valley early next year

We hope you've fully explored TrackMania 2: Canyon's ... canyon environment, because Nadeo have revealed a couple more. The game's Valley and Stadium expansions will be coming to their ManiaPlanet platform in early 2013, the latter returning from the original TrackMania to (as Eurogamer report) serve as a free-to-play component for the game. Stadium definitely seems to be the crazier of the two tracks, with loop-de-loops and all sorts going on. In related 'Mania news, Nadeo have also revealed a release date for Shootmania: Storm, which will arrive on January 23rd.

If you can't wait till next year, there's a Shootmania beta coming in December. This second phase adds a new mode, Royal Team, along with jetpacks and grappling hooks, which for some reason have eluded racing games until now. While you wait, be sure to check out this new TrackMania 2: Stadium video, then pretend you're doing that, but with shooting.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.