I can’t believe it’s been a year since we announced ModNation on stage at E3, now it’s out in the world! It’s been exciting to see the massive amounts of Racing, Creating, and Sharing going on. Our dev team couldn’t be happier to see our supporters enjoying the product of two and a half years of love and labor. We enjoy playing ModNation Racers as much as you do.

Now while there a lot of people that love the game, we know there are some issues that are affecting the fun factor of ModNation, and we just want to say-

United Front Games is with you for the long haul.

I’m always asked, “what are you guys up to now?” The answer is always the same: job number one is actively monitoring and supporting the ModNation community.

We are amazed by your published creations every day. We’re enjoying online races with you. We read your forum postings and your tweets. We discuss all of your suggestions, no matter how big or small. We watch. We play. We listen.

We are working on multiple fronts to make your ModNation Racers experience even more fun. You’ve already seen some improvements in our online racing. Our friends at Sony San Diego Studio officially launched community.modnation.com so you can stay connected to the ModNation community from just about anywhere. And there’s much more to come.

With that said, I have something exciting stats to share with you. The ModNation community has exceeded the 500,000 creation mark! We worked hard to build the most accessible, freest, and deepest sandbox for you to play in. With a half million creations and counting, I think we achieved that goal. Here’s just a few of the half million awesome creations created by the ModNation community:

Mod: Glass-eye Phil, Creator: Reavyn1

Kart: Glass Eye Television Repair, Creator: Reavyn1

Track: Modcoaster, Creator Name: hellstorm0157

Also, you’ve played more than 1,000,000 ONLINE RACES. That’s an amazing milestone for a community that’s only a few weeks young.

We can’t thank our fans enough for your support. We’ve appreciated your enthusiasm since we revealed ModNation Racers at E3 one year ago. We’re thrilled with all of the e-mails, forum postings, tweets, and fan sites, so keep ’em coming! We are dedicated to make the best possible Race, Create, Share experience possible and know we’re working hard on some rock-solid upgrades to ModNation Racers.

Look out for more information after E3, you’ll hear about it first on the PlayStation.Blog!

You are Tag, a young graffiti artist turned kart racer who enters the Mod Racing Championship (MRC for short). Tag starts off as a rookie in the Home Tour. As he wins races, he unlocks more rewards and qualifies for higher-level tours that take him to exotic races all over ModNation. Along the way, you’re pitted against the MRC’s Elite Racers. Each Elite has his or her unique visual style and driving style suited to their respective home tracks.

Jez will school you on drifting and wall riding on stunt track Drift Paradise.

Aloha knows all of the hidden shortcuts in the jungles of Lost Temple.

And Diablo is almost unbeatable on the scorched hills and valleys of Launchers Rush.

The Career Mode is both simple and deep. It’s simple in that you can blaze your way to the top of the MRC rankings by placing third or better in most races. We also have “Big Show” races — the finales for each Tour — that require you to finish in first place to qualify for the next Tour. Racking up top finishes also gets you lots of unlocks. You’ll win plenty of parts, stickers, bodies, buildings, props and more to use in your custom creations.

But for more dedicated racers, we’ve also added depth to the Career Mode. Every one of the 28 races has Payoff and Bonus Tasks that you can complete to unlock even more loot. And these tasks demand a lot of different skills. Some require maxing out your Drift and Air Points, so you’ll have to show style as well as speed. Others make you unleash the fury on your opponents, scoring a certain number of takedowns.

Some of them ask you to embarrass an Elite Racer, such as taking down Hale in front of his adoring fans on the Flaming Jumps Big Show track. Besting the Elite Racers will unlock rare unlocks, plus your embarrassed rival will challenge you to a Grudge Match. These bonus events offer a change of pace from the officially sanctioned MRC races. They can be Score Attacks, in which you out-stunt your rival. Some are One-on-One Races, in which weapons are turned off and you need pure racing skill. And then there are Thug Races, in which you have to beat your rival and his henchmen drivers. Of course, these Grudge Matches unlock even more rare rewards. As if that wasn’t enough, we also have Tokens for you to find by exploring the 28 MRC tracks. Some tokens are easy to find, while others require exploration and careful timing with super hops to get. Once collected, Tokens can be redeemed in the Shop Station for what we call Blind Box Rewards. Inspired by these are randomly selected unlocks that are sure to surprise!

In all, there are several hundred rewards to collect. Only the most dedicated will unlock them all. One more cool thing about the Career: You can — and should — be whoever you want to be. You start off Career Mode as ModNation Racers’ main man, Tag. And you’ll see Tag in lots of funny story cinematics that reveal the history and culture of the MRC. But we want Tag to be whoever you want to be, and you’ll see your custom Mod interacting with all of the other characters in ModNation.

Here’s my Mod getting some sage advice from my Crew Chief

Well, that’s all from me for now. In addition to all of the great customization tools and addictive gameplay we’ve talked about in previous PlayStation.Blog posts, I’m happy to say that we’ve got a really fun single-player campaign. It’s simple for players who want to unlock a lot of stuff quickly. It’s deep for those who love replaying campaigns. And the Mods, Karts, and Tracks of the MRC show off a lot of the creative possibilities in ModNation Racers. We can’t wait to put it in your hands on May 25!

Just in case you missed coverage of ModNation Racers at E3, we now have a trailer. And here it is:

Those 90 seconds of video capture the core values of ModNation. It’s racing, creating, and sharing made fun for everyone. And by everyone, I mean everyone.

Our team lives and breathes ModNation. We’ve got artists turning in hot laps on tracks. We’ve got programmers creating wild-looking Mods. Everyone’s making fun, original tracks by driving them. Team members are racing, creating, showing off, and one-upping each other every week.

Since the earliest prototypes, we’ve had various kids, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, brothers, sisters, moms, dads, and crazy cousins all go nuts for our game. Their passion for ModNation Racers pushes us to add more and more. More great racing moments. More cool parts for the Mods. More tools that make creating powerful and playful. More visual variety so you can make whatever you can imagine.

In short, we’ve got much, much more than we can show in the first 90 seconds!

The next several months are going to be a wild ride as we reveal more details. Stay tuned, faithful ModNation fans. In the meantime, tune into our Q&A at IGN.com!