Nadeo developed TrackMania Nations in close collaboration with the ESWC organisers. Development began in 2005 and lasted six months. Florent Castelnérac, Nadeo's director, was inspired toward esports after attending the ESWC at the Futuroscope Convention Center in Poitiers — where nearly 400 players competed in games such as Counter-Strike and Quake 4 — and a trip to China for the Chinajoy trade show in 2005, where he observed the appetite for competitive gaming. The ESWC, through founder Matthieu Dallon, signed an agreement with Nadeo to develop and distribute a free game for competition. The game was released very early in 2006 and was free to play. To compensate for its free availability, Nadeo introduced in-game advertising such as billboards for brands including Nvidia and ESWC. StarForce copy protection was integrated to prevent score manipulation during competition.
The expansion TrackMania Nations Forever was released on April 16, 2008, and took over a year to complete, going through twelve intermediate versions with input from around 600 beta testers. It added sixty-five new tracks, upgraded graphics, a new dirt surface, time-of-day selection, and the ManiaLink ranking systems. Nations Forever was also released on Steam on the same date, without StarForce protection.
TrackMania Nations offered only the Stadium environment, competition-oriented with technical gameplay, asphalt and grass surfaces, and a single driving style. Cars pass through one another as ghost vehicles — there are no collisions between cars. Players race alone against the clock in both multiplayer and single-player modes. The game uses four control buttons for braking, accelerating, and steering, plus two additional buttons to restart. Players earn bronze, silver, or gold medals on each track. A global, national, and regional scoring system ranked players after each race.
Nations introduced around 100 pre-built tracks at gradually increasing difficulty levels. The single car available — with low suspension and a tendency to roll — differed significantly from models in prior TrackMania installments and could reach speeds approaching 500 mph. Fifty-three national skins were automatically applied based on each player's country of origin.
TrackMania Nations was one of the official games of the 2006 ESWC, held from June 28 to July 2 at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy in France. The cash prize of $40,000 was won by the French player competing under the pseudonym Carl. In 2007, at the ESWC held at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles from July 5 to 8, the Dutch player Xenogear won $10,000; French players Carl and Lign took the $6,000 and $3,000 runner-up prizes respectively. The total prize money across all games was $20,000.
At the 2008 ESWC, held from August 25 to 27 at the San Jose Convention Center in the United States, Nations Forever replaced Nations. The Swedish player FrostBeule won the competition, taking home $12,000. The 2009 ESWC was cancelled after Games-Services, the French company organising the event, faced significant financial difficulties and entered liquidation at the end of March 2009. The brand was bought out in early August 2009.
Nations Forever was included in the 2010 ESWC, held from June 30 to July 4 at Disneyland Paris, with a total prize pool of $213,500 across all games; the Norwegian player Bergie won the TrackMania competition and took home $8,000. At the 2011 ESWC, held October 21–25 at Paris Expo during Paris Games Week, the Croatian player hakkiJunior won $8,000. The 2012 ESWC — held October 31 to November 4, again during Paris Games Week — was the last to feature Nations and Nations Forever. The Dutch player Spam, described as "very impressive" for not losing a single round throughout the competition, won the gold medal. That year also saw the arrival of TrackMania²: Canyon, which took up the competitive torch at subsequent ESWC events.
TrackMania Nations was generally well received by the specialist press. Hardcore Gamer considered it one of the best racing games released in the years leading up to 2006. Edge described it as a "free game with superb finishing touches." JeuxVideoPC.com called it "super fun." Eurogamer acknowledged the introduction of advertising as forgivable given the free content. Nations Forever earned positive reviews: GamesPlanet described it as a "fantastic step forward" and "incredibly addictive, brimming with competition and adrenaline." Canard PC compared its driving finesse to F-Zero and WipeOut.
The game accumulated millions of downloads rapidly. By February 25, 2006, there were 400,000 registered players; by October 22, 2007, 3,398,745 registered players; and in early April 2008 Nadeo and Focus announced 30 million game installations and 4 million account creations. By early July 2008, 15,000 new players started each day.
The TrackMania franchise is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008. Records credited to Nations include: the largest number of players connected online in the same game (132 players); the first free game specially developed for online competition; the most popular online racing game (3,398,745 registered players as of October 22, 2007); and the largest number of nationalities participating in an offline racing competition (34). Nations held the record for the largest online race until it was broken by Nations Forever in early July 2008, which allowed 250 players to connect online on the same track.
Since Nations, TrackMania became "a benchmark in the genre" according to JeuxVideoPC, and Joystick magazine cited January 2006 as the key date when the series "exploded [into the eyes] of the general public." In 2016, members of the TrackMania community created a video featuring 20,000 cars simultaneously, compiled in TrackMania² Stadium. On February 28, 2020, Ubisoft announced a remake titled TrackMania, released on July 1, 2020 for Microsoft Windows.
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