Cranked Monday Update - Steam Demo Week! September 28, 2026

Yo! Hope you had a good weekend. Big week for us, so let's get into it.

If you're new here, we have a Team Sync every Monday where we talk through our plans for the week. These are the notes from our meeting.

General Updates

• The demo launches this Friday, October 2, at 1 PM Eastern time. It'll live on its own separate Steam page.

• The demo runs for about three weeks, until October 26, and we'll be pushing at least one patch a week during that time. We're aiming for 50,000 players or more, our last playtest hit 30,000, so let's beat it.

• For you backers: you'll keep getting your build updates right through the demo. But if you can, please also hop on the Steam demo and play a bit. It genuinely helps our visibility, and that matters a lot heading into Next Fest.

• We're also running a daily Steam key giveaway on social during the demo. Post a clip of Cranked with hashtag #CrankedDemo, and maybe you'll win one of 75 keys.

• Joe and Bryan will be at the New River Gorge event in West Virginia this weekend, with contests and a Cranked group ride.

Here's what we're focusing on this week

Joe

• Getting the local downhill mode ready and pushed for the West Virginia event.

• Last bits of demo polish, fixing the special challenge, smoothing out the tutorial, and a final sound session with Pauli.

Michael

• Uploading the demo builds.

• Cleaning up the rider animations and adding new poses, including leaning into corners. Part of the steeze pass.

Cedric

• Polishing the Jammer Drop trail.

• Tuning the drop start on the new Lakeside Freeride event course.

• Back to new trails around the Forest map.

Damien

• Adding tire track decals to fill out the scenes.

• Finalize the Atherton ebike.

• Modeling two new bikes, a trail bike and an enduro, so every category has one for Early Access.

Maggie

• Working through the last round of customization fixes.

Julian

• Keeping the daily reels going, they're pulling in over 100 wishlists a day now.

• Reaching out to influencers about the demo.

That's the plan for this week. The big one is the demo this Friday, October 2. If you can, jump on the Steam demo and help us make some noise.

While the demo is live, we'll monitor feedback and push fixes. We'll use feedback from the demo to help us prioritize what to focus on between now and the Early Access launch on December 1!

Lucy says hi.