In an interview with racing game publication OverTake, studio executive Marco Massarutto spoke spoke about the same, saying that AC2 was not an accurate codename for Assetto Corsa Competizione, and that the next instalment, unlike the last one, is going to be a full-fledged sequel. For context, several files in Competizione use AC2 as a descriptor for the game.

“To be brief, the codename [‘AC2‘] that was given to Competizione was wrong,” said Massarutto. “The new Assetto Corsa is going to follow what we did with Assetto Corsa 1. It is not just a sequel, it is much, much, more. It’s definitely not a spin-off like Competizione.”

Massarutto spets quite a bit of the interview talking about an upcoming DLC for Assetto Corsa Competizione that will add the famous Nürburgring Nordschleife as a racetrack. He talked about how the decision to bring the track to the game only happened thanks to a partnership with SRO Motorsports Group for the Intercontinental GT Challenge series, which would bring 24 Hours of Nürburgring to the game.

“My reaction was ‘Oh my god, not now, not now,’” said Massarutto, since it essentially threw the studio’s development schedule into disarray. “This was our initial reaction because our workflow is on a schedule, and we didn’t know anything about the announcement. It was even a surprise to us, even though we have worked with the SRO for many years. They wanted to make a surprise, and they did!”

The release of the new DLC is stated to be one of the reasons for the sequel’s lack of a release date currently. Digital Bros—parent company of publisher 505 Games—revealed in a fiscal report last year, however, that the company is targeting a Spring 2024 launch window for Assetto Corsa 2.

The only officially licensed GT Series game, Assetto Corsa Competizione, alongside its predecessor Assetto Corsa, is a simulation racer through and through. While many games in the genre balance arcadiness and simulation, often with a lean more toward the arcade, Competizione chooses its simulation direction and fully commits. What that means is that you’re in charge of virtually every aspect of your car’s performance, both before and during a race. If you’re not prepared with the right tires for a rainy day on the track, for example, you’re going to be sliding all over the place. There’s a suite of tweaks and overhauls you can make to your car’s performance, and while there are presets as a starting point, they’re not going to get you to the top of the podium on their own. In most races, it’s all about the turns. Optimizing your cars to get a max speed in the quickest time possible is great, but if you can’t handle the tight, precise turns, you’re quickly going to not only fall into the back of the pack but probably going to spin out into the grass or into the wall, even if you can avoid collisions with other racers.

"If you’re looking for an expertly focused simulation racer, this is one of the most minutely detailed packages on the market, but the game still lacks much of a substantial structure or much of a learning curve that will likely turn off those who aren’t already in the know, especially given its lack of complete consistency."

What’s disappointing is that while there is a great amount of customization and car tweaking you can do, Competizione isn’t so good at teaching you how to play. This is a game where there’s no substitution for knowing exactly what needs to be fixed at the right time, and it provides little guidance and little room for error from the get-go. Somewhat realistic damage will dynamically affect how well your car can drive, and if you can’t make it back to pit road, you’ll have to restart. You can turn on a racing line, too, though it doesn’t help nearly as much as it does in other simulation racers. This is a game that clearly has its primary player base in mind, targeting only those who already know so much about the cars and the tracks at play. However, it means that there isn’t so much of a learning curve as there is a learning wall. You have to get to a point of understanding each of the game’s minute mechanics in order to even approach the podium, especially with AI who are aggressive and rarely make the types of catastrophic mistakes it’s so easy to make on your own.

What’s more is that in true GT Series fashion, races are marathons of endurance and consistency. Races are completed by time rather than laps, and they can range anywhere from five minutes to multiple hours. These are tests on your ability to stay focused for extended periods of time more than anything else. Making precise turns doesn’t get any easier in the sixtieth minute than it was in the first, and there’s no ability to rewind or checkpoint within a race like in other, less hardcore simulation racers. You’ll also have a list of requirements to achieve by the end of a race to qualify, including things like pitting during the designated pit window, switching racers, and changing out your tires. These are great things to have to maintain the realism of the game, but they don’t ultimately add much to gameplay and make the game feel as though it’s artificially limiting itself to appeal only to those seeking the unabashed full simulation.

If the simulation experience were one-to-one with reality, it would of course be an easy sell to racing fans, but there are a few inconsistencies that make the hardcore realism and lack of virtually any form of support feel unjustified. For one, it often feels like the strict, precise timing you have at certain points is inconsistent with that of the AI, especially with things like pitting. It often feels like your pit road speed limit of 50 KM/hour limit is slower than that of those you’re up against, and the time it takes for the game to recognize you’re in your pit zone can be back breaking. Even if it’s only a couple of seconds for the game to realize, these races are often won or lost by single digit seconds, and it puts the odds against you in an unfair way. Penalties and AI aggression, too, can be thoroughly inconsistent as to who gets punished and when. I’ve had minor taps that give me full control locks and effectively lose me the race, while enemy racers can completely spin you out with barely a slap on the wrist. Pair this with some physics on the turns that feel ever so slightly unpredictable, and it makes for an unnerving potential to have to restart a race for something that’s out of your control.

"Like its races, Assetto Corsa Competizione is a long, arduous race to the top, and it’s only for those who are ready to make small tweaks at every stage on their marathon road to victory."

Even with the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of the game, the content hasn’t changed, though the graphics and performance have seen a decent upgrade. I encountered few hitches along the way on Xbox Series X, including an upgrade to a consistent 60 FPS, and environments have much improved textures and great dynamic weather effects, both on the track and on the car. Unfortunately, even with the upgrade to the new consoles, Competizione doesn’t provide much in the way of structure or out-of-race content to provide an entryway to the experience. As in the original launch, there are only the Career mode and various online and offline modes to create races through Championships or other one-off events. The Career mode, too, is less of a career and more of a string of races in sequence. There’s no plot or progression to speak of, and as long as you finish a race, you’re on to the next one with hardly a recognition of a win or a chastisement of a last place finish. This means that there’s no in-game incentive to actually improve at the gameplay. There are no rewards along the way, nor are there any new pieces of content to unlock merely through playing. It’s disappointing for a game with this many courses and cars, since it’s easy to envision this type of system working smoothly.

It’s admirable when a game fully buys into its own concept, sparing few expenses to create as authentic an experience as possible. Assetto Corsa Competizione does that on its way to being as hardcore of a simulation racer as there is on the market today. It puts you in charge of virtually every aspect of your car and your races to ensure that success or failure is entirely on your shoulders. It looks and plays better on the new consoles, but where it falls short is where it lacks the consistency that a game like this needs in order to fully emulate reality and the content or structure to satisfy those who aren’t motivated solely by the prospect of becoming the best. Like its races, Assetto Corsa Competizione is a long, arduous race to the top, and it’s only for those who are ready to make small tweaks at every stage on their marathon road to victory.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.

At over three minutes in length, the trailer shows a solid glimpse of the racing sim, a good chunk of which shows the cockpit views of various vehicles across both day and night races. Visual enhancements over last-gen versions of the game are clear to see, especially when it comes to the lighting. Check out the full video below.

Assetto Corsa Competizione will launch for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on February 24. Between this, Gran Turismo 7, and GRID Legends, fans of racing games are going to have plenty to keep them occupied in the near future.

Assetto Corsa 2 is also currently in the works with a planned 2024 launch window, while a mobile game in the series is also in development. Read more on that through here.

Furthermore, those who own the PS4 or Xbox One version can upgrade to PS5 or Xbox Series X/S for free with all purchased DLC carrying over as well. You can also transfer saves from previous to current gen platforms. The latter will also be available physically and include the 2020 GT World Challenge Pack DLC. It contains over 60 additional liveries and three more cars among other features.

For more details on the base game, check out our review of the PS4 version here. Assetto Corsa 2 is also in development and currently targeting a release in 2024.

It was in 2019 when Assetto Corsa Competizione came racing onto the scene. The racing simulator focused on high-end sports cars, and was an impressive beast to look at on the PC side, even if it was largely barebones from a content perspective. It also had a console release not long afterward in 2020, though it was a bit of a rough transition. It’s now also coming to new systems as well.

In an official press release from 505 Games, it was confirmed that the game would be coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S later this year. Unfortunately, that’s all that was said, no idea of time frame or what options will, or will not be, for current consoles owners to potentially upgrade. We’ll have to wait for a little more information later in the year, presumably.

Assetto Corsa Competizione is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. The PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of the game will release at some point this year.

Gran Turismo Sport

Whether this is a “true” franchise sequel or not, Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo Sport is superb. It’s razor sharp in its focus on photo-realism, which is aided by lightning, material quality, global illumination and real-time shadows for everything. Vehicles look highly detailed, whether it’s reflecting the outside world or when admiring from the driver’s set. With numerous cars and tracks added over the years, Gran Turismo Sport is the way to go before Gran Turismo 7’s release.

Let’s deal with the elephant in the room first; this is a game for enthusiasts only. Those looking for a fun, relaxed racing experience need not apply. Assetto Corsa Competizone builds its experience around simulating an unforgiving, high skill approach to racing, and if you are unfamiliar with or disinterested in that kind of racing, there is little on offer for you here. The game has little in the way of a tutorial, and nothing in the way of an introduction or primer as to the kind of racing this is.

It assumes right out of the gate that you are familiar with this kind of racing and its intricacies. That’s not inherently bad, mind you; knowing your audience is important, and there’s nothing wrong with catering to a specific niche. But it is worth mentioning, because if you aren’t already aware of and interested in European GT racing, this game is not going to introduce you very well.

With that said, let’s talk about the actual experience of the simulation, since that is what the game is going for. Right away, the game makes a rough impression. The entire production of the game feels dated. There’s little to impress here from a visual perspective. The cars look decent enough, but the environments and other visual effects are severely lacking. The racing genre is often on the forefront of graphics these days, which only makes this game’s stale visuals look even worse by comparison.

Environments are flat and uninteresting, and the minimal attention to lighting means that everything looks more or less the same, regardless of visibility conditions. Heavy rain and fog simply apply a grey filter to the whole screen, resulting in little of the challenge that those conditions should bring to a race. And weather effects on the whole look fairly poor, particularly the rain effects. When racing in third person view, the rain effects leave a kind of artifact trail of your car in your wake. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be some kind of reflection, or if its simply a result of bad particle effects, but regardless of the reason it makes the game look cheap and dated.

"Those looking for a fun, relaxed racing experience need not apply. ACC builds its experience around simulating an unforgiving, high skill approach to racing, and if you are unfamiliar with or disinterested in that kind of racing, there is little on offer for you here."

Driving in cockpit view, a popular choice for simulations like this, isn’t great either. The cockpit view is very cluttered, and can make it hard to see the track ahead of you. Combined with the game’s lack of tutorial, the experience quickly becomes overwhelming if you are a newcomer. Meanwhile, the driving animations are bizarre, making it look like your driver is seizing up every time you make a turn. The arms twist and contort around the wheel in unnatural ways, and they always seem to turn 90 degrees, even for the smallest adjustment. The whole thing looks ridiculous. It makes driving in third person objectively the easier approach, which isn’t a good thing in a simulation, where immersion is often half the point.

Still, visuals aren’t everything. Does the game overcome its production issues on the actual track? Yes and no. Once you get the hang of it, the driving is mostly solid. The steering sometimes feels a bit off; slight corrections can send you veering wildly off course, while other times your car reacts sluggishly to large turns.

Being a simulation game, it’s all about gunning it on the straightaways, and tightly controlling your breaks to make winding, hairpin turns.  you do get the hang of it, the racing becomes much easier, and there is some fun to be had. There’s always a certain satisfaction in overcoming a high skill ceiling like that, and I did manage to have some fun with the game once I got the hang of it. But that opened the door to another set of problems later on. Once you get the hang of the mechanics, the racing can actually become trivially easy. I quickly went from finishing every race at or near last, to finishing every race in first place. You can adjust the difficulty up or down, but in my experience things didn’t really change that much.

"Once you get the hang of the mechanics, the racing can actually become trivially easy. I quickly went from finishing every race at or near last, to finishing every race in first place."

The game isn’t flowing with things to do, either. There’s two main modes, a Championship mode and a Career mode. Both of them are fairly straightforward, with the Career mode simply serving as a longer version of the Championship mode. In both, you run through a series of courses, vying for the best position. The career mode adds in placements, team sponsorships, and things like that. It’s fairly standard. There’s also a quick play mode, where you can choose from a variety of different tracks and race types, as well as weather conditions, time of day, and other variables. A rotation challenge mode offers up a handful of different challenges that you can attempt. And of course, an online mode allows you to test your mettle against players around the world.

Assetto Corsa Competizone is a strange experience, a game trying to be a hardcore simulation, but without the production value to truly pull it off. And while the simulation is there to an extent, it’s surprisingly easy to master once you finally do so. Combined with the poor visuals and lack of content, it results in a game with remarkably little to offer to its target audience as well. I suppose hardcore enthusiasts of European GT can probably get some decent enjoyment out of this game. It’s not bad; I had fun with it. But casual racers need not apply, and even for enthusiasts, there are likely better ways to get your realistic racing fix out there.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Italian developer Kunos Simulazioni released Assetto Corsa Competizion on PC last year after a roughly year-long early access period, and in the time that has passed since then, they’ve kept on adding content and improvements to the racing sim. Right now, it’s sitting in a solid position, and has fostered a strong community, and soon that community will be growing even larger, with the game releasing for consoles today, on June 23.

We recently interviewed the developers about the game’s console launch, and also asked them if it will feature any visual enhancements on the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. As you might expect, that will indeed be the case.

Producer and game design director Davide Brivio told us that on the PS4 Pro, Assetto Corsa Competizione will have improved draw distances, anti-aliasing, post-processing, and particle effects when running in the 1080p output mode. Meanwhile, there will also be a 4K mode, where the game will run at an 1800p resolution.

On the more powerful Xbox One X, on the other hand, on top of having the visual enhancements mentioned above, Assetto Corsa Competizione will also be able to run at a native 4K resolution, which would be 2160p.

You can read our full interview with Brivio through here.

Assetto Corsa Competizione is available on PC, and as of today, also on the PS4 and Xbox One.

"It has been an absolute pleasure, we have been building up a strong relationship with our community in the last decade, so we are really committed when it comes to providing them with a racing simulation they can enjoy. It has been wonderful to receive feedback on our work."

Reception to Assetto Corsa Competizione has been very strong among the game’s community in the time it’s been available on PC. How heartening has it been to see players respond to your game in such a positive fashion?

It has been an absolute pleasure, we have been building up a strong relationship with our community in the last decade, so we are really committed when it comes to providing them with a racing simulation they can enjoy. It has been wonderful to receive feedback on our work.

People might think that we reached our nirvana with incredible celebrities like Charles Leclerc and Valentino Rossi joining esports for Assetto Corsa Competizione, and the reality is that: yes, we are incredibly happy for this, and for the kind words they used to describe “the most advanced GT3 simulation they have ever tried”. But in truth the day after, we were completely convinced that our community is what we value the most, those that are actually enjoying ACC as their top choice for sim racing esports, live streamings on Youtube, Twitch and playing daily, those that are always ready to give us feedback that we use for improving our products and can wait patiently when we have something to improve.

Delivering a product like Assetto Corsa Competizione to our community is really emotional.

Assetto Corsa Competizione released on PC a year ago, and was in early access for another year before that- how much has the game grown in all that time?

A great deal. Assetto Corsa Competizione was born under the ambition of maximizing all of our technologies by focusing them on a specific class of cars: GT. We went so deep on the physics, graphics development and optimization that it actually required a bit more than expected to give an all-around shape to the game.

For example, there were so many aspects that became vital, such as bringing the rating system to a deep and comprehensive level, managing to tweak all the regulation aspects and penalties system, making pit stops and strategies something really useful, allowing players to save a game in the middle of a lap and then loading the game afterwards and supporting triple screen layouts with independent settings on a third party engine, just to name a few. There have been a lot of challenges, but we think we have made a major impact and spent our time well over the last two years, all considered.

"There have been a lot of challenges, but we think we have made a major impact and spent our time well over the last two years, all considered."

With the Intercontinental GT Pack DLC, you’ve already added a significant amount of content to Assetto Corsa Competizione, while other content updates that you’ve announced for the coming months also look like they’ll be adding a lot. Is the plan to keep supporting the game in this vein beyond 2020, or are these updates as far as you’ve planned out for now?

GT4 will be coming “soon” on PC and console, and we really can’t wait for it, as it will be a fresh addition to gameplay. This vehicle class is pretty different to drive and handle when compared with GT3 cars, so can’t wait for the community to get their hands on those! After that, we will add some new tracks to Assetto Corsa Competizione thanks to the British GT Track Pack DLC, arriving Winter 2021. We want to keep our focus 100% on delivering great quality content for both of these for now.

Assetto Corsa Competizione has really caught on in the esports scene. Is this an area where you want to keep expanding the game’s presence?

Thanks for the question as this is really a common talking point within KUNOS Simulazioni. This pandemic and lockdown convinced a lot of people to see sim racing esports for what it is: an intense, interesting and profitable environment.

We look at the esports scenario as a great opportunity, and also a confirmation of the value of our efforts in game development. On the other hand, we are a software development studio that has a clear vision.

Our job and mission is providing the market with the best simulations we can achieve and this alone takes up our entire day pretty easily.

The studio has grown, with around 20 people at KUNOS Simulazioni and this has given us pretty clear idea as to why we prefer to focus on development and providing all the tools we can for the esports environment, rather than being directly involved in esports organization itself. That is a totally different business.

Thanks to our partners such as SRO and AK Informatica, the esports on ACC are flying- everyone is putting their skills to work and creating great events.

That’s the scenario we see for evolving the presence of Assetto Corsa products on the esports market, providing a perfect tool for organizers to develop their businesses, but keeping our focus on the simulation.

"That’s the scenario we see for evolving the presence of Assetto Corsa products on the esports market, providing a perfect tool for organizers to develop their businesses, but keeping our focus on the simulation."

Do you have any plans to launch the game on the Switch?

On Assetto Corsa Competizione we are currently 100% focused to deliver the best experience for PC, PS4, and XB1 platforms.

Will the game feature Xbox One X and PS4 Pro-specific enhancements? Is 4K/60 FPS on the cards?

PS4 Pro in 1080p output mode has improved draw distances, anti-aliasing, post process effects and particle effects. In 4K the game runs at up to 3200×1800. On the other hand, the Xbox One X has the same graphics improvements and natively runs at 4K.

RAGE 2

Built on Avalanche Studios’ Apex Engine and packing the punch of an id Software shooter, RAGE 2 is a flawed but hellishly fun game. It is also a visual treat. Boasting a lot more flair and visual variety than its predecessor, and supported by the tech to back up its creative ambitions, RAGE 2 looks constantly impressive and explosive.