Those who have purchased both titles can still experience all the content and features, including multiplayer. As for the developer’s next project, it looks forward to sharing more “when the time is right.” In December 2020, CEO Ian Bell tweeted that Project CARS 4 would aim to be the “most realistic” racing sim ever.

Said tweets were deleted, but insider Tom Henderson reported in May that the sequel was indeed in development and would be more of a hardcore racing sim. It’s apparently planned to release sometime in 2024 for current-gen consoles and PC. As such, a reveal or official trailer may still be a ways off so we’ll need to wait for more details. Stay tuned in the meantime.

An update from the Slightly Mad Team on #ProjectCARS and #ProjectCARS2. pic.twitter.com/VtWEow5jao

— Project CARS (@projectcarsgame) August 22, 2022

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.

METAL GEAR SOLID 5: THE PHANTOM PAIN

Metal Gear Solid 5’s emergent sandbox has a ridiculous amount of depth, with multiple systems constantly interacting with each other to deliver some of the mot dynamic stealth gameplay we’ve ever seen. Weather effects are one of many layers in that complex web. Rainfall and storms can dampen the noise you make, making it easier to sneak around enemy bases, while sandstorms do the same, in addition to also impacting visibly, which impacts the enemies as well as you. Having to adapt strategies on the basis of the weather feels truly rewarding in The Phantom Pain.

METRO EXODUS

At the time of its release, every single Metro game has boasted phenomenal visuals, to the extent that even 2010’s Metro 2033 still looks great, and last year’s Metro Exodus upheld that proud tradition. Requiring a GeForce GTX 1070 or an RTX 2060 or an AMD RX VEGA 56 for the highest possible settings, and with full-blown support for ray tracing, Metro Exodus is by far one of the best looking games you can play on PC right now.

After Xbox Live Gold subscribers discovered that certain titles were free in April, Microsoft has officially announced its free Games With Gold lineup for April 2020. And yes, it indeed includes Slightly Mad Studios’ Project CARS 2 and Lionhead Studios’ Fable Anniversary. Available for Xbox One and Xbox 360 respectively, each title will be available throughout the month.

Other games include the Knights of Pen and Paper Bundle for Xbox One. Developed by Seaven Studio, it includes the first and second games in the RPG/board game/strategy series. You can claim it from April 16th to May 15th.

For Xbox 360 players, there’s also Toybox Turbos, a tabletop racing title from Codemasters. This will be available from April 16th to 30th. Thanks to backwards compatibility, Xbox One owners can access all four titles when they go live. For those looking for something more high-profile, it might be worth checking out Xbox Game Pass for console which adds NieR: Automata Become as Gods Edition on April 2nd.

Microsoft has yet to reveal what next month’s free Games With Gold will be for Xbox Live Gold subscribers. However, it seems that two of April’s offerings have already been confirmed. As per Wario 64 on Twitter, if you head to the store listings for Project CARS 2 and Fable Anniversary, they can be downloaded for free by those with Xbox Live Gold memberships.

Project CARS 2 is only the standard edition for Xbox One and not the Deluxe Edition which includes all of the paid DLC. As one of the better realistic racing sims out there, it might still be worth checking out. Fable Anniversary is for the Xbox 360 and returns to Lionhead Studios’ first game with graphical improvements, revamps and other changes.

Though an announcement has yet to be made, it wouldn’t be strange for Microsoft to release a trailer later today. Games With Gold usually offers four games each month so we’ll likely learn about the other titles later today. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

Project Cars 2 is available on Xbox GWG https://t.co/FNs9eqUKNj pic.twitter.com/0FkeyL8MwX

— Wario64 (@Wario64) March 31, 2020

Fable Anniversary is free on Xbox GWG https://t.co/ZuUaEKbHIV

*make sure it's free on checkout

still don't know what the rest of the April GWG titles are. MS never made an announcement. pic.twitter.com/lpWJVXm9Jz

— Wario64 (@Wario64) March 31, 2020

Given that Codemasters almost exclusively deals in racing games of various types, it is a legitimate surprise that it took this long for this to happen, but yes, they have gone ahead and acquired Slightly Mad Studios. Slightly Mad Studios is most recently known for Project CARS and its follow up. However, they have also gained notoriety in the last few months for their apparently totally unironic announcement of their own high end console, the Mad Box.

The Mad Box is apparently not the reason Codemasters has bought Slightly Mad, however. Speaking in the press release that officially announced the acquisition, Codemasters CEO Frank Sagnier said,“We are delighted to bring such an incredible racing game developer to the Codemasters family, and this unequivocally establishes us as a global powerhouse in the development of racing titles.

“We share the same passion and vision and our new partnership will accelerate our growth. With more streaming services coming to market and the next generation of games consoles due in 2020, this is the perfect time for Codemasters to take its next step.”

They even mention streaming services, but they very carefully do not bring up the new console allegedly in the works at Slightly Mad. Maybe it’s just vaporware now, and will not be happening. Which, I am sure, will be devastating news to… someone, I’m sure.

While Sony’s additions to PlayStation Now, their cloud based streaming service, for the month of December 2018 exhibited a case of quantity over quality, with not much standing out in the 50 new games that were added (other than maybe For Honor), the month of January seems to be the opposite of that.

Over on the PlayStation blog, Sony has revealed the full lineup of games being added to PS Now. While there’s only nine new games added to the service this month, there’s a few notable ones in there. First off, there’s Prey, Arkane Studios’ incredible reinvention of the series that launched in 2017. The other two headline additions are Metro 2033 Redux, and Project CARS 2.

Also in there are God Eater 2: Rage Burst, and the 2D RPG and tower defense hybrid Lock’s Quest. Sony also notes that these nine new additions bring the total number of streamable and downloadable PS4 games on PS Now to over 275, and over 700 streamable games in total. You can check out the full lineup of new additions below:

• Chess Ultra (PS4)
• God Eater 2: Rage Burst (PS4)
• Lock’s Quest (PS4)
• Metro 2033 Redux (PS4)
• Onechanbara Z2: Chaos (PS4)
• Prey (PS4)
• Project Cars 2 (PS4)
• Skydrift (PS3)
• Thunder Wolves (PS3)

Fans of Slightly Mad Studios’ Project CARS series of racing simulation games will be extremely excited and glad to know that a third game in the series is under development. Speaking in a forum thread on GT Planet where a potential third game for the series was being discussed, Slightly Mad’s CEO Ian Bell confirmed that a third game in the series is in fact in development.

That’s all we got, so it’s unclear what more to expect from this new game. Will it even be out for the PS4 and Xbox One, or is it going to be for their successors? When is it out? Will it follow the same structure and format as Project CARS 2, or is it tweaking it? Will Bandai Namco still be publishing the game?

On all of that, your guess is as good as mine. All we know from Bell is that the new game is planned to be very ambitious. “We plan to blow anything else, planned by anyone else, out of the water,” he said.

In the end, given that Project CARS 2 did well critically and commercially by all accounts, this shouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone. Nonetheless, I am sure fans are happy regardless.

While Project CARS 2 was already enhanced to support the Xbox One X, it seems that Slightly Mad Studios have gone ahead and added new enhancements to make the game look even better graphically and to give players more options and control over what their game will look like.

The new enhancements fall under the “Graphical Bias” setting menu, and let users select their desired visual quality while maintaining the optimal framerate for their experience. The first on is “Enhanced Visuals”, which runs the game in a 1440p resolution, with all shadows, track and vehicles, and rear-view mirror details set to as high as possible. The second option is “Enhanced Resolution”, which sets the resolution to 3K (2880×1620), and automatically balances the details to compensate for the big increase in resolution.

Both the above options may use dynamic scaling a fair bit, Slightly Mad warns. The final option is “Enhanced Framerate”, which sets the resolution to 1080p, locks the framerate to 60fps, and adjusts all settings dynamically as necessary.

As someone who values framerate over all else, I am glad that there is an option to prioritize that- resolution junkies and graphical effect enthusiasts get settings suited to their style of play as well. This is really the best possible way to handle graphical enhancements.