Trials Evolution designed on an Xbox 360 controller

Most Xbox 360 levels are designed using a computer. Pieced together using sophisticated, bespoke tools that require a mouse, a keyboard and a brain like Einstein to operate. Not so with Trials Evolution.

According to Creative Director Antti Illvessuo, every track in the new game is built with the same tools that players will have at their fingertips when they download Trials Evolution from XBLA. That means the track designers at Red Lynx are sitting there with an Xbox controller in their hand, in front of the same hardware you have under your TV and designing the courses you'll be playing in the final game.

And with Trials Evolution simultaneously breaking free of the dim warehouse of HD and demonstrating far more variety and imagination in its own design, it'll be immediately clear just how much power Red Lynx is putting in players' hands.

The editor's good not only for designing tracks to scramble over, but entirely new game modes. Even the built-in Skill Games, which profoundly fiddle with the bike mechanics, were all built using the remarkably sophisticated editor.

Even if the prospect of that much power is terrifying, every player can benefit from the new tools simply by logging onto the new Track Central system and downloading the work of the community. There'll be feeds for the most popular, most recent and Red lynx's own picks of the work, amongst others.

And best of all the tracks are tiny in size, up to a maximum of 8KB, meaning they'll be downloaded in the blink of an eye. Particularly helpful in multiplayer, where matches will flit between user generated levels on a round by round basis.

At this point, within months of release, Trials Evolution feels like a sealed Pandora's box. As soon as it's released and the community gets its hands on arguably the most powerful editor included in an Xbox 360 game, even Red Lynx can't predict what will be floating around on Track Central. We're as excited as they are to find out.